In Sickness and In Health
by Animorphgirl
Summary: Stephanie gets a virus, and is abducted by a familiar character. Takes place between the end of "Hot Six" and the beginning of "Seven Up". Fluff/Romance/Humor. CUPCAKE. FINALLY updated.
1. The Abduction

Disclaimer: Stephanie Plum and the characters in this fanfic are the sole property of Janet Evanovich. They are being used without her expressed permission, but for the purpose of entertainment. NO money is being made off of this fanfic. Please do not sue—I am a poor librarian who is still living with her parents.

A/N: This takes place between the ending of "Hot Six" and the beginning of "Seven Up".

A few days after my grandma had moved out of my apartment, I woke up with a terrible headache and a sore throat. Not wanting people to think I was a big baby, I bought some cough drops and cold medicine and tried to suck it up.

The following day, the terrible headache had been replaced by a slightly less terrible headache, a stomachache, and a 103 degree fever.

The sore throat hadn't gotten better or worse.

I decided I'd had enough with sucking it up and would call in sick to Vinny's office until my body decided it wanted to work.

In the meantime, I was going to try to get some much needed sleep, something I'd been sorely lacking when Grandma Mazur had been staying at my apartment.

About an hour after I made the call to Connie, I was woken out of a restful sleep by a knock on my door.

I ignored the knock and pulled a pillow over my head. I'd use the pillow as a weapon if someone was stupid enough to break into my apartment when I was feeling this sick.

Whoever was knocking on the door stopped. Seconds later, my phone rang. I groaned, grabbed my portable phone, and prepared to yell at the person who was stupid enough to call.

"'Lo."

"Steph, it's Joe. I'm at your door."

I debated whether or not I should yell at Joe Morelli on the phone, or let him in so I could yell at him face to face.

"Shouldn't you be at work?" I mumbled.

"I took the morning off." Pause. "Lula called and said you weren't feeling great."

"That was yesterday," I croaked. "Today, I'm all out sick. My temperature's 103."

Morelli let out a low whistle. "Okay, don't move. I'll let myself in."

Before I could protest, he'd hung up the phone. I stared open mouthed at it for a few seconds as I registered the information. I shut off the phone and paused for about two seconds before pulling the covers back over my head.

Morelli was in my room a minute later. He was dressed in his usual cop clothes, and even in my feverish state, I couldn't deny that he looked hot. As usual.

I, on the other hand, had a rat's nest for hair, and I was pretty sure that my breath smelled pretty bad since I hadn't bothered to brush my teeth that morning. Certain things don't count when you're sick.

I sort of stared at Morelli as he crossed over to my bed and put a hand on my forehead. His hand was freezing cold, which meant that my head must be _really_ hot. I moved my head out of his reach.

"Let me sleep," I complained. Then, because I had to know, I asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Taking you back with me, Cupcake. We're sort of engaged now, so I don't think either of our families would mind if you stayed at my house while you recovered."

"Go away. Can't you just let me stay in my nice, warm bed?" I complained. Okay, _whined._

Morelli pretty much ignored me as he began rummaging through my stuff, taking items of clothing out of the drawers and putting them into a duffle bag. Once he was satisfied that he had everything that I needed for the next few years, he turned to me. I was sitting up in bed, watching the scene unfold with something resembling horror. Who _was_ this man?

Morelli hoisted me out of the bed. "Cupcake, this is _much_ better. I can take care of you this way. I won't be worried that I should have called the ER because you're on your deathbed."

I fumbled around in his arms for the blankets, which somehow slipped through my grasp.

"First of all, I'm sick, not dying. I don't need you to _take care of me._ Second of all, I'm freezing and I'm tired. I want to go back to bed!"

Morelli removed the comforter from my bed and tucked it around me. While doing so, he managed to immobilize my arms, which he somehow managed to tuck into the blanket. I could kick my legs, kind of, but the upper half of my body had lost its capacity for movement.

It also felt warm under the blanket, and Morelli was holding me very securely and comfortably in his arms, but I wasn't going to think about that.

I pretty much pouted and complained all the way to his car, which did nothing except make my throat hurt worse.

"You see what you did?" I rasped as he sat me in the passenger seat and buckled the seatbelt over the blanket.

"Then you don't want to make it worse," Morelli cautioned, putting an arm on my shoulder. "Look, Steph, we'll be at my house in a few minutes, and once I make sure you're safe and sound, you can sleep as long as you want."

I still didn't fully understand why I couldn't sleep in my apartment, in _my_ bed. Okay, so maybe it made sense for me to be in Morelli's vicinity if my cold got worse. But was that any excuse for kidnapping me—literally taking me from my bed—when I was trying to recover?

He probably just wanted easier access to sex when I started to feel better.

Well, he could forget that. Not only did I feel like I wanted to die, I was so ticked off that I was willing to abstain from him for the rest of my life.

Or at least for a few months.


	2. Familiar Environment

During the drive out of the Burg, I gave serious consideration to the idea of jumping out of Morelli's car. I decided against it, not because I was feeling too weak and exhausted to get very far if I did manage to get out. Nor because I knew Morelli would be extremely angry if I tried to pull that kind of a stunt. Morelli wouldn't hurt me—I knew this from months of experience at getting on his nerves—but he would probably yell a lot and catch me before I managed to get very far.

No, the deciding factor in my decision not to escape was that my arms were so much entangled in the blankets that I knew I couldn't reach the seatbelt without drawing a lot of attention to my plan.

And that would make implementing the plan kind of difficult, since Morelli would figure out something was up as soon as I tried to unbuckle my seatbelt.

I sat there in angry silence as Morelli drove to his house, listening to the radio station he'd turned on. Some news station with occasional music breaks.

Morelli pulled the car into his driveway, grabbed the duffle bag from the back seat, and unlocked the doors. I figured he'd let me walk in by myself, but he had me scooped up in his arms before I could protest. I vaguely wondered what his neighbors were thinking if they saw him carrying me, wrapped in a blanket and a flannel nightgown, into his house. Probably, my mother would be calling me this afternoon to tell me that she'd received hundreds of calls from neighbors.

Great.

Once we were in the house, Morelli put me down so I could walk. He kept a firm arm around my shoulders, like he was afraid I was going to bolt from his house the second he took his hands off me.

He steered me upstairs, and I assumed that he was taking me into his bedroom, but we stopped outside of one of the bathrooms. I looked at him expectantly.

"You're feverish, Cupcake, and honestly, you stink. You need to take a shower before you can go back to bed. And maybe brush your teeth?"

I sighed loudly, but knew he was right about the smell. I'd been alternating between sweating and shivering the past night, which has seriously limited my capacity for sleeping. I'd pushed the blankets away from my body and over my body so many times, I ended up losing track.

"Do you want me to help you?" Morelli continued.

I wrinkled my nose in disgust. "I can clean myself up without help!" I growled.

"I'll wait outside," Morelli promised.

"Outside the _bathroom_, not outside the shower!"

"What if you trip on the floor and pass out?" he persisted.

"I'll take that chance."

Morelli raised his eyebrows. Maybe he was concerned about my safety, but I thought that at least part of him wanted to see me naked.

"You'll leave the door unlocked?"

"Promise."

I walked past Morelli and headed into the bathroom. I was starting to feel dizzy, and hoped I'd be able to manage a fast shower without collapsing onto the floor. The idea of getting clean was appealing, but the process needed to get to this end seemed unnecessarily risky. Maybe I should have let Morelli help me. He probably wouldn't do anything—we never had sex when I was drunk—but I wasn't an invalid and didn't want him treating me like one.

I stood under the warm water and washed my hair. I noticed that my legs and underarms had gotten pretty hairy, but didn't feel like risking cutting myself shaving. The hair would still be there when I wasn't sick. I scrubbed my body, made sure all of the shampoo was out, and then turned off the water. I grabbed a towel from above the shower—Morelli had really soft towels—and brushed my teeth with the spare, unopened toothbrush and toothpaste Morelli provided for his guests. I brushed out my hair with a brush that hadn't been touched. I knew this because it was still in the plastic container. I was pretty sure I was the only overnight guest, and I felt kind of warm inside thinking that he cared enough to provide that kind of thing in case I forgot to bring mine. I wondered if he kept tampons in the medicine cabinet in case I forgot mine, but didn't feel like wasting the energy looking.

When I was finished, I opened the door, still wrapped in a towel. Morelli stood in the doorway, holding a flannel nightgown. I took the nightgown, shut the door, exchanged the towel for the aforementioned nightgown, hung the towel on the towel rack, and opened the door again.

"Feel any better?" Morelli asked as he put an arm around my shoulder.

I guessed he was still afraid I'd fall down if I didn't have that protecting my balance.

"A little," I replied, because it was true. I was still in no condition to do anything but lie in bed for the rest of the day (maybe sit up for a few hours, if I pushed myself), but at least the sweating was gone.

Morelli didn't let go of me until I was lying on the bed in the guestroom I'd stayed in a few months ago when my apartment had been firebombed. He partially removed the covers from the bed, plopped me down, and then pulled the covers up to above my chin. After doing this, he took the comforter I'd previously been wrapped in and put _that_ on top of the blankets. Then, he proceeded to tuck me in, which meant tucking all of the blankets around my body so that they produced the maximum amount of heat possible.

"Warm enough?" he asked.

I nodded drowsily. I felt nice and toasty, and about a thousand times more tired than I'd felt in the shower. Which I hadn't thought was possible.

Morelli sat on the bed and began to run a hand through my damp hair and I momentarily shut my eyes, thinking about how nice it felt to have Morelli run his fingers through my hair. I wasn't ready to fall asleep yet, so I forced my eyes open and my attention on Morelli. Morelli had transferred his weight so that he was sitting on the bed next to me, and now carefully maneuvered me into his arms. I felt my body slump against his chest, my head fall on one of his shoulders. Morelli stopped stroking my hair, keeping his arms wrapped around me in a secure hug. I felt my mild anger melt away, replaced by a not totally unfamiliar sense of contentment that being in his arms usually brought me. My last thoughts were along the lines of annoyance that Morelli had kidnapped me, but relief to be this comfortable and this near to my kind of sort of fiancé. I'd recognized for awhile that that, in his weird way, he really cared about me and ultimately had my best interests at heart. This abduction was further proof of his "weird ways" and his concern for my well being. I yawned, and finally allowed myself to shut my eyes.

When I woke up, I felt disoriented and wondered where I was. Morelli had left a note next to my pillow.

_Steph,_

_Had to leave for work. Didn't want to wake you up._

_Back for 5. There's food by the table if you get hungry. Also, cough medicine._

_Bringing back soup for your throat. Call if you need anything._

_Love,_

_Joe_


	3. Resting

I sort of smiled at the note, then debated whether or not I should go back to sleep. I was still pretty tired, but I was also feeling hungry. I was debating the possible benefits of going downstairs to get food over the possible problems doing so would present. I might fall down the stairs, or not be able to get upstairs. I felt a little better now, but I was still sitting up in bed. My gaze shifted towards the dresser, and I noticed that Morelli had placed a tray of food there. It sat on top of the breakfast table you'd use to serve someone breakfast in bed.

My immediate disbelief turned into a rush of warm and fuzzy feelings. Maybe I was being emotional because I was sick, but I keep thinking how nice it was that he'd thought I might get hungry—and probably shouldn't leave the bedroom—and had left me food. I removed the tray and the mini table from the dresser and on top of the covers. Morelli had left me a tall glass of juice, a large bowl of cheerios, and a few plates of fruit. Next to the food was a bottle of cough medicine and a spoon. Next to _that_ was the same brand of cough medicine, but in tablets. I guess Morelli wasn't sure which I'd prefer.

Hungry but not wanting to overeat and make myself even sicker, I picked at the cheerios and the grapes. I ate about a handful of each, waited fifteen minutes to see how my stomach reacted, and then nibbled on some more. I guessed that the food was meant to last me until Morelli came home for dinner, so I should probably save some of it for lunch. I glanced at the clock. It was past 11AM, so what I was eating was basically a late breakfast.

My stomach seemed to like the fruit more than the cereal. Ordinarily, I'd eat frosted flakes for breakfast, but the thought of that made my stomach turn. I usually ate a lot of junk food, but the foods that made up most of my diet had no appeal to me right now. I'd be living on cereal, fruit, and soup until I got better. Even peanut butter sandwiches held little appeal. Probably, I'd end up losing some weight by the time I was completely myself. That was okay—I'd enjoy the donuts and frosted flakes even more after I was back to normal. I could easily gain back whatever weight I'd end up losing, and more. The trick would be not going overboard.

After I'd finished eating, and taking the cold medicine, I was looking forward to going back to bed when I realized I had to go to the bathroom. Bad. I forced myself back on my feet, fighting the dizziness. Opened my door and headed for the bathroom. Once I was back in bed, I realized I'd forgotten to close the door all the way. Not that it really mattered, but Morelli had closed it before he'd left. Probably didn't want Bob getting in the way. But I was too sleepy to get up _again_, so I left the door the way it was.

I took another nap, wrapping myself up in the soft sheets and blankets Morelli had provided. I felt incredibly lazy, but it wasn't like I'd be able to do anything if I forced myself to get up. The headache had diminished, and the sore throat was a little better, but otherwise I still felt like I'd been run over by a truck. Secretly, I was glad that Morelli had kidnapped me, but I still planned to give him some grief about it. I woke up from a dreamless sleep a couple of hours later, feeling hungry again.

I finished off the cheerios and the grapes before starting on the apple. After I was done with that, I picked at the blueberries. Those didn't taste as good, so I only ate a few. I returned the tray back to the dresser when I heard my cell phone ring. I didn't bother to check the number before answering.

"Hello?"

"Steph? It's Joe."

I settled back against the pillows. "My kidnapper."

He laughed, but otherwise ignored the comment. "How are you feeling?"

I paused, taking a moment to consider. "A little better. Still pretty sick."

"Were you able to eat anything?"

"Some of it. Thanks for the food," I added, figuring I should have said something earlier.

Joe laughed again. "I like to treat my hostages nicely, so they're less likely to complain and try to escape."

I rolled my eyes. Not that he could see it. "I'm not going to try and escape, but don't count on my not complaining. You _did_ kidnap me."

Morelli snorted. "Things are pretty calm here, so I'm going to take off soon. Did you want anything else at the market?"

"Hmm." I stared at the ceiling as I pondered the question. What did my mom use to give me when I was sick? "Popsicles would be good. I probably shouldn't have ice cream, though."

"Yeah, definitely avoid ice cream. I'll pick up some popsicles on the way back. Maybe more fruit?"

"Yes," I agreed, then yawned. "Sorry."

"Get some sleep, Cupcake. I'll be home around 4."

"Okay." I could feel my eyes getting heavy. "Night…"

"Sweet dreams."

I barely managed to turn the phone off and pull the covers over my head before sleep took over.

When I woke up, I couldn't move my feet.


	4. Visitor

The knowledge that I couldn't move my feet sent me into a panic. I was paralyzed! How this happened, I wasn't sure. I knew that when my grandmother had been young, there'd been occurrences of Polio that seemingly struck people at random. Healthy kids would wake up paralyzed, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Later on, they developed a vaccine for the illness, and the people who could be treated were treated.

I was pretty sure they no longer manufactured the drug, since the last polio case must have occurred over forty years before I'd been born. Great. Mine was the first one in over half a century, and no doctor would be able to help me.

The thought made me squirm, and then I realized that, even though I couldn't move my feet, I _could_ wiggle my toes. Wait, didn't being paralyzed mean you couldn't even feet your toes? I tried to sit up, fighting dizziness at moving so quickly. I almost burst into tears of relief when I saw Bob sitting on my bed.

_He'd_ been the one keeping my feet immobile. Not some virus. The forty plus pound mass of fur, love, and drool was plopped on the bed, ignoring my feet in his quest for a comfortable place to nap.

Ordinarily, I would have shooed him away, and if that didn't work, I'd roll him off of me. He looked pretty content laying there, his eyes closed and his body stretched out so that he took up practically the entire width of the queen sized bed. I didn't have the heart to wake him up.

Moreover, I didn't have the physical strength to move him off me. His body felt like boulders over my feet—completely immotile. _Warm_ boulders, sure, but still boulders. I rolled my eyes at Bob. I'd just have to stay there until Morelli came back and rescued me. Good thing I didn't have to go to the bathroom yet.

Which, come to think of it, was probably how he'd managed to get into my room. Morelli had kept the door closed for a very good reason, but I'd forgotten to close it all the way. Bob wasn't one to waste a good opportunity to be with another human. Or to be on top of a comfy bed, warmed by the aforesaid human. I smiled to myself.

I glanced at the clock. 3:16. Morelli would be back soon. He said he was going to bring chicken soup and popsicles. Food, in general, still didn't sound very good to me, but chicken soup held some appeal. It would probably help my throat, at least.

I didn't feel like going back to sleep, so I just lay there until I heard the front door open. Moments later, Morelli entered my room carrying two grocery bags. He gave Bob a puzzled look, then turned to me.

"You had a visitor," he stated, putting the bags on the dresser.

"He arrived when I was sleeping," I said. "I thought I was paralyzed when I woke up."

Morelli shooed Bob off my feet, but not off the bed. I stretched my legs.

"Thanks."

Morelli sat down next to me, pulling me into his arms so I was facing him if I looked to my side. I nestled against the pillows, and he proceeded to rub my feet and my legs.

"Mmm," I murmured, shutting my eyes. "That feels nice."

"Nice" was an understatement. Joe had given me foot rubs and back rubs on various occasions, and I usually fell asleep a few minutes into them. I'd wake up an hour or so later with him still next to me, Joe looking at me amusedly and me feeling momentarily disoriented before remembering the events that coaxed me into sleep.

It wasn't something I'd expected during the one time I'd lived with him. Morelli men were known for being good lovers, but bad husbands and even worse fathers. They didn't physically abuse their wives—they cheated on them instead—but they did beat up on their kids. Mostly the boys—the female Morelli's tended to get off easy. I'd never seen Joe's mother with a bruise on her face or arms that marked a disagreement with her husband after he'd had too much to drink, but I had seen those on the younger Morelli boys from time to time. After they became teenagers, the beatings became rarer, because the boys were almost the size of their parents. In a way, if you survived the first twelve years in the Morelli household, the rest of your life would be a piece of cake. Or, at least, considerably easier.

Joe had grown up in the same household as his brothers, had grown up under the same abusive father. I'd known that he had matured after his years in the navy and then on the police force. I was fairly certain that he wouldn't abuse his future kids the way his father had abused him. He probably wouldn't object to spankings if he felt the situation warranted it. Being hit on the bottom with a bare hand—with pants on, no less—was nothing compared to being whipped on the bare legs (or worse) with a heavy belt.

Of course, this was mostly speculation on my part. Despite becoming sort of engaged, we hadn't had any serious talks about our future together. I wasn't even sure if Morelli wanted kids, much less how he wanted to handle discipline when the future kids acted up. We rarely spoke about his childhood, but in the Burg, few things were kept secret.

Lots of things were kept quiet, though. You understood that you weren't supposed to talk about them. What Morelli fathers did to their kids wasn't polite dinnertime talk, but then again, most mothers thought that Morelli men were bums.

Even though I'd witnessed first hand that Joe Morelli had changed over the years, and would never become a carbon copy of his father, it was still hard to reconcile the wild Joe with the domesticated Joe who had a dog and a house, and—most surprisingly—gave his girlfriend foot rubs and back rubs.

I watched as Joe continued to work on my feet. His hands now focused on my individual toes, rubbing each one carefully. His fingers now kneaded the gaps in between my toes, and if I hadn't been feeling so sick, I would have thought I'd died and gone to heaven. The blankets were still wrapped around most of my body, but the ankles and below were free so that Morelli had better access to my feet. This was fine with me, because I found myself enjoying watching him, instead of just going by plain sensation. He was methodical, but sometimes broke the pattern to start a new one.

I sighed again, and he looked up and smiled at me.

"You're usually asleep by this point," he said, not breaking the pattern.

"I've been sleeping most of the day," I replied, shifting my weight to my side.

"Hmm."

Morelli didn't say anything else, and I found myself almost bursting with curiosity. I'd been wondering this for awhile, but hadn't wanted to ask in case he took it the wrong way. Now was as good a time as any, since he'd probably attribute any offense my question held from my being sick. I _had_ accused him of kidnapping me earlier.

"Where'd you learn to do this? Have you been taking classes?"

The idea of Joe Morelli in a class teaching the art of massage was so funny that I let out a snort of laughter. Joe must have found it funny too, because his immediate reaction (a sly smile) turned into his own guffaw, which lasted for the better part of a minute.

The whole time, though, he didn't divert his attention from my feet. I took this as a good sign.

"Well?" I demanded, sitting up in bed. He had to shift his position to keep up with my feet's sudden movement.

Joe was silent for a little, but I was pretty sure it wasn't a bad silence. Maybe he was remembering something. More likely, he was debating whether or not to tell me. Probably, it was an old girlfriend. Maybe Terri Gilman—they _had_ dated a lot in high school…

"My mother," he finally replied.

_That_ surprised me. Joe's mom, the fear of all the Burg, teaching him _that?_

Not that foot rubs were especially sexual…well, I guess it depended where they led. Still, the image of Mrs. Morelli teaching this to Joe seemed even more absurd than Joe sitting in on a class devoted to the subject at a community college.

I just sat there in disbelief for a few minutes, and Joe didn't say anything else. I think he was pleased that his answer had that effect.

"Want to explain?" I finally managed.

Bob sneezed and rolled over on the bed. Morelli rolled his eyes at the dog before turning his attention back to me.

"She'd give us foot rubs or back rubs when we were sick," he explained. "And always to my dad after he'd had a long day."

It took a lot not to snort at this. Morelli's father, having a long day? After what, beating on his kids? Joe must have noticed my reaction, because he nodded and rolled his eyes.

"She said it made him easier to live with," Morelli explained. He shrugged. "Maybe it did. I wouldn't know.

"Anyway, she taught my sisters how to do it, because she figured that they'd end up marrying a man like my father, and need to know how to. She didn't teach me or my brothers. My dad would have had a fit." He grinned. "Maybe that's why I tried to pay attention when she taught them. And I was pretty observant when she gave me a foot rub. Not so much with a back rub, because you can't really see that."

I smiled. I liked the idea of a pre teen Joe Morelli pretending to play with a train set or do some other "male" indoor activity, while really keeping an eye on his mom and his sisters during their weekly back/foot massage lesson.

"I figured it could only help when I started dating," Joe explained. "Or, that's what I told myself."

He hadn't done it when he'd seduced me behind the éclair case, but I guess he hadn't really needed to. Mary Lou had been right—his tongue was like a lizard's. Not that I'd needed much encouragement. I'd had a crush on Joe Morelli for years, and the thought that he was a "bad boy" my parents didn't approve of only heightened my attraction to him. I'd said that he seduced me, which was true, but I hadn't really needed much seducing. Just being alone in the same room as him was enough.

"Did it work?" I asked him.

He grinned. "Hell, yeah. Not that it was the sole reason for my reputation, but it sure helped. You probably don't know this, but I was more wild than my older brothers had been at my age. We once did a tally of all of the women we'd slept with, and I was ahead of them by at least ten. Of course," he added, leaning over to give me a kiss, "that's all in the past now."

I rolled my eyes at him. "My father would probably kill you if it wasn't."

"Don't I know it." Morelli let his hands go from my feet, and pulled me into a bear hug. "You hungry?"

"Yeah." I tried to get up, but he pushed me back on the pillows. "Joe, I've been lying here all day. I need a change of scenery," I complained.

Morelli glanced at me, considering. "We can watch TV in the living room _if_ you let me carry you there. And if you stay completely under all of the blankets."

This sounded good, but I hated that he was acting bossy. "I thought I was going to eat. How will I move my hands?"

He grinned impishly. "I can feed you."

I groaned and rolled over in the bed. "I'm not two."

"Fine, I'll figure out a way to keep your hands free." Morelli scooped me up, balancing me in his arms the way you'd carry an infant. I found myself being carried me off the bed and out of the room. "But really, Cupcake, it's your loss."

A/N: Thank you to everyone who's read this far. Please don't forget to leave a review—just a line or so would be great!


	5. Getting better, and then worse

Morelli carried me downstairs, wrapped tightly inside two blankets. I was afraid he'd drop me, but we made it to his living room without incident. Once there, he put me down on the couch, and repositioned the blankets. He wrapped around my legs so that, from the waist down, I was completely covered and tucked in. He wrapped the other blanket around my back, having me wear it like a giant shawl my great grandparents must have worn when they came over from Italy. It must have looked old fashioned, but it was pretty practical. I was warm enough, but able to move my arms around. I'd be able to eat the chicken soup without any problem, as long as I was careful not to spill any.

After I was settled in and watching TV, Morelli disappeared into the kitchen and returned with the soup on a tray. The tray also contained a glass of juice and a mug of a steaming liquid I figured must be tea. I wrinkled my nose at this.

"I _hate_ tea," I complained, glaring at the offensive liquid.

Morelli sat down next to me. "It will be good for your throat."

I pushed it against the far side of the tray. "No, it won't. It will be bad for my throat, because I'll throw up as soon as I swallow it."

Morelli raised his eyebrows at me. "It's not green tea or any of that nasty stuff, Cupcake. It's peppermint."

I sighed, brought the mug up to my mouth, and took the tiniest sip possible.

"How is it?"

I swallowed tentatively. "Could be worse."

Truth was, it didn't taste too bad. Probably, my body wasn't rebelling because I was so sick it no longer understood which foods I liked and which ones I didn't like. If it really made my throat feel better, I'd finish the whole mug. But I wasn't about to tell Morelli that he'd been right.

He'd figure it out soon enough.

I turned my attention to the soup. It looked much more appetizing. Pieces of chicken floated around the broth, accompanied by brown rice. I was pretty sure it came from a can, since making chicken soup can take days. My mom made homemade chicken soup when I'd been a kid and got sick. Morelli didn't have that kind of time to spend on it. It didn't matter. There wasn't a huge difference in the taste, and I appreciated that he'd thought to run to the store and buy it.

Morelli's dinner consisted of leftover lasagna I was sure his mother had brought over. We ate in companionable silence for awhile. He finished way before I did, pushing back his plate and watching TV as I finished the last of my meal. When I was done, I pushed the plate back and lay against the cushions. Wordlessly, Morelli draped an arm around me, and I found myself moving my body so I was completely curled up against him. He wrapped his free arm around me, and I felt like I was being held in a backwards hug. We watched the evening news like that, and then some game show came on. It didn't look very interesting, but I was too relaxed to pay much attention.

At some point, I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew, Morelli was carrying me back upstairs. I'd expected him to take me back into the guest room, but he carried me past that room and into his bedroom. I still had the two blankets wrapped around me, but I was starting to feel cold again. Not a particularly good sign, but I was too tired to take much notice of this.

"Am I staying here?" I asked, yawning.

Morelli laid me on the bed and kissed me on the forehead. "Thought you could use the company."

"I need to brush my teeth," I recalled.

"Do you want anything to eat or drink before you do that?" asked Morelli, stroking my hair.

I shook my head, eyes closing. I felt him lift me up and guide me to the bathroom. I washed my face and brushed my teeth, deciding against showering. I'd already taken one earlier, and I hadn't sweated during the day. If anything, it was an effort to stay warm. I waited for Morelli to shave and brush his teeth, all the while leaning against the shower doors for support. Once he was finished, he put an arm around me and guided me back to the bedroom.

I was already in my nightgown, so there was no point in changing. I sat up against the pillows, watching Morelli as he exchanged his jeans and shirt for a pair of boxers. He usually wore these when I spent the night so that he could undress easily if we decided to have sex. I'd assumed that we wouldn't be having sex for the next few days, so I felt a little nervous when I saw Morelli get into bed without putting on a top. Then, I realized that I couldn't remember if it was normal for Morelli to just wear boxers to bed.

I was clearly sicker than I thought I was, if I couldn't remember these little details.

He pulled the covers back, lifted me in his arms, and carefully placed me on the bed. He tucked the covers around my body before getting in. Once this was finished, Morelli got in next to me. He held me close to him, and even though I could feel the heat flowing from his body onto mine, I felt cold. What started with a few shivers soon turned into full blown teeth chattering. I could _not_ get warm, no matter how tightly he held me.

After a few minutes of this, Morelli got out of bed without saying a word.

"W-where are you g-going?" I asked, pulling the blankets he'd pushed aside onto my stomach.

"Getting more blankets, Cupcake. You're freezing." He kissed me on the forehead. "I'll be right back."

He disappeared, and with him, pretty much all of the warmth of the bed. I felt as though I'd been thrown into a swimming pool of ice cold water. I waited, impatiently, for Morelli to return, and wondered if I should try to take a boiling hot shower if this continued. Hot showers usually helped me warm up, especially during the winter. It was the middle of March now, so it was still _technically_ winter, but still…

Morelli was taking awhile with the blankets. Ten minutes later, I was still shivering under the covers. Alone. I was more relieved than ever that he'd kidnapped me—no way would I have been able to take care of myself like this on my own.

Soon, I heard footsteps and saw a large pile of blankets that piled so high, they covered Morelli's head. The thought would have made me laugh and tease him on a regular day. Even now, it brought a small smile to my face. He dumped most of the blankets on a chair, and then proceeded to lay the first one on top of me. Then, he tucked the blankets in underneath my body and legs. He repeated this process at least four more times. By the time he had finished, I had enough covers on me to keep a person warm in the north pole.

Morelli crept in next to me, putting his arms around me again. I nestled against him, content. The chill was gone, and the chattering in my teeth had stopped. A part of me knew it was ridiculous to need this many covers in the middle of March, and a smaller part of me wondered what would happen if I woke up in the middle of the night in a sweat from these blankets. Most of me, though, felt contented and warm. Morelli's presence added to my state of being.

I was still worried. "This can't be normal," I said, looking up from the mountains of covers covering my chin.

One arm increased its hold on me while the other one began to rub my shoulders. My breathing slowed.

"If you're this cold tomorrow morning, I'll take you to a doctor," Joe promised. His hand worked along my neck, traveling up and down in small circles that nearly put me to sleep.

"I thought I was getting better," I complained half heartedly.

"Me too, Cupcake." His hand now worked at the part of my neck where the shoulders met. "Look, we'll figure something out. It's probably nothing."

I put my face in his chest, then turned it to the side when lack of oxygen became a problem. At least, I was warm. I'd stay in bed the next day. _All _day. I'd ask Joe to move the TV from the living room to the bedroom. I'd stay wrapped under the covers until he got home, hoping that I wouldn't have to get up to go to the bathroom. I fell asleep to these thoughts. Joe was still holding me and rubbing my neck when I fell asleep.

I woke up later that night feeling like I was going to throw up immediately. The nausea had returned at full force. If I didn't get to the bathroom within the next thirty seconds, the last few meals I'd eaten would be decorating the covers.

Morelli still had me wrapped in his arms and tucked in under at least ten blankets. Trying not to panic, I threw the blankets off me and disentangled myself from Morelli. I _ran_ to the bathroom, knelt over the toilet as though it were a holy object (which, in a way, I guess it sort of was), and spent the next few minutes throwing up.

The taste in my mouth was terrible, but the smell was even worse. I flushed the toilet a few times and was about to brush my teeth again and get back to bed, when I realized there was a second round coming. Once again, I knelt before the toilet and heaved. I was dimly aware that a lot more seemed to be coming out of me than I'd put in over the last day or so. Wasn't food supposed to be digested within twenty-four hours?

Not that this mattered as much as getting everything out. I flushed the toilet again, and prepared myself for a third round.

Nothing was coming, but I made myself stay at the toilet for at least five minutes so I could be sure I wasn't going to puke anymore. It would be awful to get back in bed and then heave all over the covers. All over _Morelli._ He'd probably forgive me, but I'd never live it down. It would ruin sleeping together permanently. He'd probably make me sleep in the guest room for the rest of our lives together, if we somehow ended up getting married.

When I was ninety percent confident I was finished with throwing up, I stood at the sink. Located my toothbrush, put about ten inches of toothpaste on it, and brushed my teeth for at least three minutes. Rinsed, then brushed again. Waited another five minutes in case the flavor of the toothpaste aggravated my stomach. It didn't—I was safe. Unsteadily, I made my way back to bed.

As a rule, I don't usually throw up all that much, even when I get really sick. It has happened, and I try to get to a toilet (or a bucket) as fast as I can, because once my body decides it didn't like something I ate, there's no convincing it to hold off on expelling it.

The last time I threw up was right before the wedding I'd gone to with Joe, but that had been Ranger's fault. I'd foolishly asked him to help me exercise the day of the wedding in order to fit into a dress I ended up not wearing. Well, not wearing to the wedding. Anyway, he'd been Mr. Macho and completely inconsiderate of the fact that I can't run a three minute mile. Naturally, he'd pushed me too far, and I'd thrown up my breakfast. Possibly my snack from the previous night, too. I hadn't exercised since. Exercise, rather than excess junk food, had been the cause of my digestive problems. Better to avoid that sort of thing entirely.

Since I'd kept to my informal resolution, I wondered what I'd eaten over the last few days that had given me this kind of reaction. I hadn't eaten very much over the last day, and what I _had_ consumed had been mostly healthy food you were supposed to eat when you were sick. I'd probably eaten a donut or two over the past few days. I'd had coffee a few times. Maybe there had been bacteria in one or more of the foods I'd eaten that made me feel so sick. Possibly, it had caused my fever, or virus, or whatever you want to call it, and the vomit had been a delayed reaction.

I hoped that I'd start to feel better now that I'd gotten rid of whatever bad food I'd eaten. Of course, I'd probably gotten rid of all of the _good_ foods too, so I'd be feeling especially weak the next day. Still, better weak than vomiting.

I crept back into bed. Morelli was still sleeping, and I pulled the covers over me. I wasn't feeling as cold as I had been before, so maybe that was a good sign. I nestled next to Morelli, who put an arm around me, even though I was sure he hadn't woken up.

A few hours later, I woke up with the same need to puke, but it wasn't as violent as before. It was still very necessary that I get to the bathroom, because you really can't make necessary bodily functions wait. My body wasn't always connected with my brain. If I had to go to the bathroom, my bladder wouldn't always listen to reason from my brain. Same with other bodily needs.

I didn't throw up as much the first time. I flushed the toilet and knelt in case a second round was coming. It did, but what scared me was that the vomit was tinged with blood. That couldn't be normal, right? Had I torn something? I knew that if you had bulimia, this kind of thing might happen on occasion.

I wasn't bulimic.

Coughing blood was never supposed to be good, but I hadn't been coughing. I'd been puking.

I was so concerned with the sight of blood that I didn't hear Morelli enter the room.

"Cupcake, are you okay? Oh shit, that's nasty!"

He must have seen the blood.

I turned around to face him, and he stepped back involuntarily. Can't say I blamed him. To Morelli's credit, he didn't stay back. He walked up to me, knelt beside me, and turned me so I was facing the toilet. Began rubbing my back. I was pretty sure that the vomit was gone, but I guessed that it couldn't hurt to be safe. After a few minutes of kneeling and feeling Morelli's hands work along my back, I reached for the toilet and flushed. I heard him let out a sigh, probably of relief. The smell couldn't have been that great. Someone would have to clean the toilet in the near future, and I was willing to bet that someone would turn out to be Morelli.

Poor guy. He'd thought he'd been doing the right thing by having me stay with him when I'd gotten sick. Instead, I'd interrupted his sleep (which I knew he needed pretty badly) and probably caused permanent damage to his plumbing. I wanted to cry, but I felt too weak to spend energy on forming tears. I stood up, and Morelli ran the water in the sink. Found a wash cloth, soaked it in the water, and began to wipe the sides of my mouth with it. It felt nice. I wasn't especially thirsty, but the water tasted good—felt good—after the blood and vomit. I guessed I should brush my teeth again. Once Morelli was finished with the wash cloth, I found the toothbrush, squeezed out some toothpaste, and half heartedly began to run the brush along my teeth. More to get rid of the taste of blood and vomit than because they felt particularly dirty. But I guessed it couldn't hurt to give them an extra brushing.

Morelli continued to rub my back as I brushed my teeth, murmuring comforting noises that I couldn't completely make out. After I was finished with rinsing, I thought I might pass out then and there.

"Can you walk if I hold you?" he asked, wrapping both arms around my shoulders.

"Possibly," I replied. I wanted to lean into him, rest against him, but if I did that, he might pick me up and cause another round of vomit. I didn't think either of us could take that.

Best to suck it up, make it to the bed, and pray that the vomit attack didn't resume before the next morning.

"This can't be normal," I muttered, taking small steps towards the bedroom. "I've never been _this_ sick before."

"I'll take off tomorrow," Morelli promised, keeping his hands tight around my shoulders. "We've got to get you to see a doctor."

"I think I need to go to the ER," I replied bitterly, only half kidding. I hadn't been to my regular doctor in two years, and I wasn't sure if he still practiced in Trenton. Besides, he did regular stuff, not dealing with bloody puke.

"You may be right."

I'd never fainted before in my life, but I was pretty close to it by the time I reached the bed. Each step seemed to drain me of more energy. Probably hadn't helped that I'd gotten rid of any nutrition I'd been able to consume over the past few days.

Morelli tucked me into bed once more and held me in his arms. "Wake me if you need _anything_," he told me. "Okay?"

I think I nodded, but I wasn't sure. The warmth of the covers and softness of the bed felt overwhelming, and within seconds of closing my eyes, I fell into a restless sleep which lasted until morning.

A/N: As always, all constructive reviews are appreciated/begged for. Please take a moment to leave one!

A/N #2: Joe Morelli wanted me to inform you that the next chapter would be from his perspective. He's already bugging me to start writing.


	6. Inside the ER

**Joe**

I hadn't been extremely worried when I found out that Steph had caught some kind of a bug, but I figured it would be easiest if she was staying at my house while she recovered. It wasn't so much that I'd have better access to her when she got better. I knew that she'd feel resentful of my taking charge, and possibly refuse to have sex with me for a few days after she was completely better. That was typical Stephanie.

My initial plan had been to check on her and offer to bring cold medicine, cough drops, or chicken soup as needed. Maybe stay for an hour or so and give her a back rub. Check in periodically until she felt normal again. If she'd just been feeling under the weather, I could stop by every day and make sure she was resting enough to get better sooner, rather than later. As luck would have it, Stephanie had been really sick when I first visited, and I knew that the best plan of action would be to have her stay at my house while she got better.

I hadn't wanted to do this because I'm human and I didn't really want to have to provide hourly care for a sick girlfriend. Especially when that girlfriend didn't _want_ me hovering over her. If Stephanie had said something like, "Joe, I'm really sick and I don't want to move back in with my parents because they'll drive me nuts, so could I crash with you for a few days?" I would have said yes without any hesitation. Stephanie doesn't ask for something unless she needs it, and she often _doesn't_ ask for things when she does need them.

The problem arises when she needs something, doesn't ask for it, and thinks that she doesn't want it.

My taking her to live with me fell under this category.

I knew she didn't mean it when she called me a kidnapper. Knew that she was actually grateful that I knew her well enough to offer help when she didn't ask for it. Sure, it hurt a little that she kept complaining and calling me names, but I wasn't a toddler. I could live with that.

When I left her to go to work, I made sure she had everything she'd need for the next several hours. Food you ate when you were sick, lots of blankets, no interference from Bob the crazy dog. I'd planned on going shopping after work for more of that "sick food", and I'd call midway through the day to make sure Stephanie was still alive and safe at my house.

She seemed marginally better when I came back from work. Then, she got worse. I guess it started after dinner—I'd picked up several cans of chicken soup, and heated up one of those cans to serve to Steph. She ate a lot of her dinner, but not all of it. I didn't pressure her to eat more, because I didn't want her eating more than she wanted only to feel sicker later.

She'd been unusually cold when we'd gone to bed, but this wasn't _completely_ unheard of when you were sick, so I just found extra blankets and tucked Steph in extra well.

I didn't let myself fall asleep until I was sure that Stephanie was asleep. She seemed to be breathing okay when I let myself drift off. I woke up briefly in the middle of the night when she returned to bed, but I figured that she'd just had to go to the bathroom. I was still half asleep, and didn't want to baby her too much, so I didn't say anything.

The second time she got up, she accidentally kicked me, so I woke up. I was about to roll over and go back to sleep when I heard her running out of the room. I followed her, keeping quiet, and stopped outside of the bathroom. Steph had been throwing up really badly, like there'd been something stuck in her throat. She flushed the toilet and I was going to approach her, but she started up again. I peered in closer, and saw that there was blood mixed with the vomit.

Okay, not a whole lot of blood, but still blood.

_That_ freaked me out, because blood in bodily functions is never a good thing. Except if you're a woman and you have your period, but even then, I'm pretty sure that the blood isn't supposed to come out of your mouth, if you get what I mean.

But I didn't want to scare Steph, so I tried to calm her down and get her to rinse out her mouth without letting on how terrified I was. Told her I'd take her to the doctor the following day if she wasn't doing any better, and she joked that she'd need an ER.

That was exactly where she was going to go, but like I said, I didn't want to frighten her. Stephanie Plum is an incredibly tough woman, but there's just no reason to make someone freak out in the middle of the night. I'd wake her up early the next morning, after she'd had her necessary eight hours to keep her from being a total crabby witch (to put it mildly). Tell her we were going to take her to the doctor to get a check up. Then, let the people with the medical degrees diagnose her, while I prayed (a rare occurrence for me, I know, but I still believed in God even if I was one of the worst Catholics in the Burg) that there was nothing really wrong with her. I really hoped that Steph didn't have cancer or a brain tumor or any of those strange diseases you constantly hear about on medical shows. Both the real ones and the fictional ones.

I just wanted Steph to be okay. Honestly.

But after putting Steph back to bed, _I _couldn't sleep, and I began to torture myself thinking about anything I might have done wrong that day in my care of Stephanie. I left the bedroom, headed online, and did a google search for Stephanie's symptoms.

The overall consensus was that blood in vomit was really, really bad, and that it could be indicative of stuff like dying from cancer, or it could be something pretty bad but not necessarily fatal, like food poisoning.

Cancer was something I couldn't begin to think about, but I wondered if maybe Steph had food poisoning. Problem was, I couldn't figure out what she could have gotten it from. I doubted that she'd eaten much before I "kidnapped" her that morning. I mean, when you're sick, foods you usually love taste horrible. Stephanie hadn't been doing well the previous day, according to Connie, so I didn't think she'd eaten much then either. I began to think it was something I gave her.

Which really got me worried, so I did another search for foods that had been recalled recently. I remembered that I'd given her cheerios, some fruit, and chicken soup. Also water, but water probably didn't count. None of the foods I gave her had been recalled within six months, so I did what any insane but caring boyfriend would do and began to search through the trash. Maybe the box of cheerios had been chewed on by Bob. Or something…I didn't know what.

I nearly cut my finger when I found the can of chicken soup, but it ended up being okay because I noticed there was a hole in it that I hadn't noticed before. Wasn't especially large, but noticeable enough by the naked eye. I hadn't been paying close attention when I'd picked up the food that didn't need to be examined closely. I'm not a housewife, but it's common sense that you look at fruit before you buy it in case there's mold or something looks off. Stuff that's sealed, like canned food or boxes of cereal, don't need to be inspected.

And that had been the problem. I had just grabbed a bunch of cans of soup and put them in the cart. Of course they'd be okay. Except that even stuff that's sealed or canned can still get damaged in trucks, or when it's handled by the store employees. It's not like everyone's perfect. Even if they got robots to do the mundane jobs that humans now do, there would still be glitches (at least, for awhile), because humans would be the ones who designed the robots and their programming. Human beings can catch their own errors, sometimes, but robots can't do that unless they're programmed to. Anyway, that kind of thing is way off in the future, if what scientists are telling us is true. Robots won't be performing our jobs for a long time, and I'm pretty sure that the police force is completely safe from being robotized.

The hole could have been caused by me. Maybe I'd been clumsy with the can opener, or the bagger hadn't been gentle enough when bagging my items. Or, maybe it was there all along, and I'd been in too much of a hurry to see it.

I decided not to say anything in case I was totally wrong and it turned out that Steph had some kind of bacterial infection unrelated to anything she ate. How bad would I look then, unnecessarily, if I confessed that I might have given her contaminated food when it was something else entirely? Sure, it seemed like it was my fault, but what did I know? I wasn't a doctor. Hadn't even been to college. I didn't deal with the forensic stuff on the job. My background in science was next to zero—I probably wouldn't be able to pass any of the tests I'd scraped by in high school unless I did some serious studying.

I'd let the experts figure out what was wrong with Steph.

Still, even after I returned to bed, I couldn't fall asleep for the rest of the night. As soon as Stephanie showed signs of waking up, I began assembling supplies to take to the emergency room. Cough medicine. Cough drops. Blankets, in case she got cold. Sweaters and sweatshirts, in case the ER didn't allow blankets. No idea why they wouldn't, but it couldn't hurt to be prepared. A few bottles of water. Cheerios and crackers, because she'd have to eat something and Steph would be able to keep those down. Lots of change, in case she ate all the food and got hungry for something else. I was pretty sure hospitals had vending machines.

The whole thing took less than five minutes, and as soon as I was finished, I hurried upstairs to make sure that Stephanie was still breathing on her own and not kneeling before the damn toilet, vomiting out more blood.

She was lying in bed, but her eyes were open and her face was focused on something, so I knew she was awake. I bent down next to her.

"Steph?" I asked, trying to sound gentle and reassuring. "How are you feeling?"

"I haven't thrown up yet," she said, trying to smile.

I sat down on the bed and began to rub her back. "Well, that's encouraging."

"I feel like I've been hit by ten trucks," she continued, closing her eyes. "I hate this, Joe."

I maneuvered her so that she was sitting up and leaning against my arms. "I know, Cupcake. I'm going to take you to the hospital. We're gonna find out what's wrong."

She groaned. "I don't want to get up."

I continued to rub her back. "Just for a few minutes," I promised, kissing her on top of the head. "You can sleep in the car and in the waiting room."

Steph continued to make protesting noises, so I figured I might as well do most of the work for her. Funny, I'd undressed her on occasion without much difficulty, but dressing her was harder. She was already wearing underwear—I didn't want to _think_ about having to deal with wrestling her into a pair—so it was just a matter of removing the nightgown and putting on a pair of pants, a bra, and a shirt. I chose sweatpants, because they seemed more comfortable than jeans. Getting the bra on was a little harder. She kept swatting at me and claimed I was tickling her. The shirt was a little easier.

Then I remembered she needed socks and shoes, but Steph seemed more motivated now to put those on. A cynical part of me wished she'd been feeling more cooperative when I'd started the whole process, but I pushed that aside. It wasn't Stephanie's fault—she probably was hardly aware of how she was acting. I'd tease her about it in a few weeks when we were about to have sex, and she'd act like she didn't know what I was talking about. Like I'd made the whole thing up.

After Steph had all of her clothes on, I helped her walk to the bathroom to brush her teeth and do her hair. I ended up doing her hair while she brushed her teeth. I'd never done anyone's hair before except mine, but when Stephanie tried and failed to get the brush completely through her hair once, I realized that now was the time to learn.

I was as gentle on her hair as possible, and finally pulled her hair back into a high ponytail. She kept complaining that I was hurting her and she was going bald. I didn't argue with Stephanie, even though I wanted to. _Suck it up, Joe,_ I kept telling myself.

I locked the front door to the house and carried Steph to the car. Opened the door, buckled her in, and then headed in on my side. Her head was slumped against the seatbelt, which couldn't be safe, but the hospital was only ten minutes away and it wasn't the morning rush hour yet. Still, I didn't want to get into an accident on the way there. I unbuckled Steph's seat belt and moved her to the back.

"What are you doing?" she complained once I'd finished.

"Your head was slumped back, Cupcake. I figured it would be safer to put you in the back. Just relax. We'll be there soon."

Stephanie rolled her eyes at me, and I ignored her. I started the car, and we were pulling up to the hospital parking lot ten minutes later. She hadn't thrown up in the car, and hadn't complained about feeling sick. I took both as good signs.

There weren't a lot of people waiting at the ER, but the receptionist told me to sign in on the sheet next to her desk. Then, she gave me a stack of forms to fill out. To be honest, she didn't seem all that happy to be there, but it was 8:30AM on a Friday, and I guessed that she was thinking about the upcoming weekend. During my research the previous night, I'd discovered that the ER tended to be less busy on Friday mornings, and the most busy during the day on Monday. People tended to suffer through their illnesses during the weekend, unless it was major, and then came in on Monday in order to get a sick day from their job. Or from school.

A few mothers and fathers with screaming kids were sitting in chairs, looking like they'd rather be any place but here. Some older people, including a few women my mother and grandmother's age, were spread across the room. One of the women was knitting and listening to something on an ipod. Well, good for her for being prepared for the wait. Nurses came into the room every so often to collect sick patients or drop sick patients off. With the exception of the kids, the ER was pretty quiet.

I filled in the necessary paperwork while Steph sat in an uncomfortable looking chair, huddled in a blanket. She looked miserable, and I could hardly blame her. Bad enough to be waiting here when you weren't sick. I hoped the doctor would see her soon, so we could figure out what was wrong with her, get the necessary drugs into her body to get her feeling better, and head back to my house. I'd already told my boss I wouldn't be in that day, and wouldn't be available at all during the weekend. He hadn't been happy, but he'd accepted it. He knew that Steph and I were serious, borderline engaged. I rarely took off from work, so when I did, he recognized that I had a good reason.

After the forms were finished—I'd needed Steph's help for most of them—I handed the paperwork over to the receptionist and checked to see where Steph was on the wait list. I was fairly certain that the sign in sheet served as just that, because the receptionist periodically crossed off names as people went in to see the doctors. There were ten—maybe eleven—people ahead of Stephanie when I turned in the paperwork. I hadn't paid attention to the number of people ahead of me when we got in, but it seemed like the doctors were seeing someone every five or ten minutes.

I'd read that the average wait in the ER was just under an hour. More if you acted like a jerk. Less if you exhibited real signs of illness—like periodically throwing up.

Once I returned to Stephanie, I took her in my arms and held her close to me. She gave me a weak smile, and put her head against my chest. She let out a sigh, and I wasn't sure if it was in appreciation or if she was just damn tired of waiting.

Usually, I'm not one for public displays of affection. When we're in public, I might put an arm around Steph's shoulder, or give her a peck on the cheek or forehead. We sometimes hug. Kissing on the mouth is something we almost never do in public, because my pals in the police force would never stop giving me grief about it. It's not _all_ about my image, though. Stephanie's not big on PDAs. She'd rather show affection in private, away from prying eyes. We let each other know that we love each other, but we don't like to do it in front of other people. When I do something like put an arm around her shoulder, it's as much to show other people that Steph's my girlfriend as it is to let her know I'm happy to see her. This may sound cold, but it's really not. Women give me flirty looks at least ten times a day, and Steph regularly encounters men who'd like to do more than look, if you get what I mean. I think she appreciates it when I send out the nonverbal message that she's with me. If she minds, she hasn't told me, and I'd be more than willing to listen to her.

Anyway, when I finally got back to Steph, she seemed so sick and tired and just overwhelmed that I took a seat next to her and wrapped my arms around her small frame without a second thought. Stephanie's always been thin, even if she doesn't like to think so, but I was pretty sure she'd lost at least five pounds since coming down with the virus. She didn't look starved or malnourished, but I felt like there was less of her. I just wanted to hold Stephanie, maybe rub her back, and let her know that I'd take care of everything. Maybe she could fall asleep leaning against me while we waited for one of the doctors to take care of her.

She slumped against me, and the blanket slipped off her shoulder. I repositioned it on her and put a hand on her neck, carefully working at it with my thumb and forefinger. She sighed, but I knew it wasn't a totally contented one. How could it be?

"It'll be okay," I murmured into her ear, keeping my other hand in a firm grip around her arm. "They'll see you soon, and figure out what's wrong."

"Vinnie will kill me if I'm not back to work soon," she stated, looking me in the eye.

"Don't worry about that," I soothed. She sighed while I continued to rub her neck, and soon her eyes closed and breathing became lighter.

I hated to wake her when the nurse called her name, but I knew that the sooner we saw the doctor, the sooner Stephanie could be back in bed. Hopefully, with a bottle filled with prescription drugs that would help her feel better within the next day or so. I half dragged Steph to the office the nurse led us too, and sat with her on the examination table while we waited for the doctor to arrive.

I'd already made up my mind to tell the doctor about the hole in the can of chicken soup. If he thought it didn't matter, at least I'd only be guilty of being careless. If it _did_ matter, and had contributed to Steph's chills and vomiting, then he'd know the cause of it and be able to give her medicine to help her feel better. Ideally, I'd have wanted Stephanie not to know that I might be the reason behind her getting worse, but she had the right to know if that was the case. I didn't think she'd be furious—it had been an accident, after all—and I'd find a way to make it up to her. It wasn't like I'd been trying to poison her.

The doctor was a slightly heavyset man who looked like he was in his mid to late forty's. Early 50's, tops. His hair was dark brown mixed with grey, and was receding at the top. His face was a little chubby, but I could imagine that this would seem endearing to certain women, especially the 40 plus crowd. He was a good six inches shorter than me, placing him on the smaller side of the male population, but this actually fit with the rest of him. He was the "cute", non threatening doctor patients would want to see, because they'd suspect that he was overly nice and not act like they were nuts for asking a lot of questions.

He introduced himself as Dr. Johnson, and explained that he wanted to know about Stephanie's symptoms and medical history.

"Are you on any medications?"

"Cough medicine."

"I mean, prescription drugs," Dr. Johnson clarified, smiling. "Aside from vitamins. Or, do you normally take over the counter medications? Eye drops? Anti-depressants?"

Stephanie shook her head. "I don't usually take anything. Not even vitamins."

Dr. Johnson made some notes on a sheet of paper. "Any family history of diseases?"

Steph bit on her lip, and I kept an arm around her shoulders. "My grandfather—mom's side—died from a heart attack a few years ago. He was in his early 80's. Nothing on my dad's side."

He asked a few more questions relating to family diseases, including the ages of Steph's parents and grandparents, before moving onto her reasons for coming into the ER.

Stephanie explained that she'd woken up sick a few days ago, and when it hadn't gotten much better with cold medicine and cough drops, she called in sick indefinitely. I'd found out about her cold/virus and gotten her to stay at my house while she got better.

"I was feeling a little better, but last night, I was really cold and couldn't get warm. Joe had to find extra blankets. Then, I woke up a few times during the night because I had to vomit. The last time, there was some blood in the vomit."

Dr. Johnson nodded. "There could be a number of reasons for this, so I would like to run some tests. I also want you to list any foods you ate within the past seventy-two hours that you can recall."

He took her blood pressure, drew some blood, and looked in her mouth, eyes, and ears. Dr. Johnson made her take several deep breaths and let them out. He had her take off all of her clothes except for her bra and underwear. He touched various parts of her torso, obviously wanting to rule out tumors or appendicitis. Fortunately for Steph—who was shivering in just her bra and panties—the examination didn't last long and she could put her clothes on soon. I tucked the blanket around her shoulders, and she gave me a grateful smile.

"Thanks," she whispered.

I squeezed her shoulders in response.

Stephanie listed all of the foods I had given her over the past day. Dr. Johnson occasionally asked for brand names, but otherwise remained silent as he took notes. Finally, he asked the question that Steph wouldn't be able to answer, but I would.

"Did any of the foods look unusual before you consumed them?"

Stephanie shook her head, but I admitted that after Steph had gone to sleep, I'd gone through the garbage to see if I'd inadvertently bought something damaged. I revealed my discovery about the soup can hole, but added that I couldn't be sure if the can looked that way while it was still in the store.

"I was rushing, so it may have gotten bruised in the car, or during checkout," I concluded.

Dr. Johnson nodded, said that he'd have a nurse take the blood over for testing, and suggested that we go back to the waiting room until the results were ready.

It didn't take too long for the results to come back. Steph didn't say much to me while we waited, but I wasn't sure if this was more due to the fact that she didn't feel like she had the energy to get angry, or because she really wasn't angry. She let me rub her back while we waited, and I saw a few of the women waiting look at me enviously, as though they wouldn't mind being in Stephanie's position. I felt a little self conscious, but tried to ignore them and focused on Steph's breathing.

"Feel good?" I murmured.

She gave a barely perceptible nod, and I figured that she was just minutes away from falling asleep in my arms.

The test results came about an hour later. During that time, I made Steph get up so that she could drink some water and eat some crackers. I didn't want her to become dehydrated, and I didn't think it was safe for her to go so long without eating, especially when the last meal she'd eaten had probably been thrown up over twelve hours ago. Steph drank the water without complaining, but I had to urge her to eat a few crackers.

"I just want to go back to bed," she complained, leaning her head against my chest.

"I know, baby," I soothed. "It shouldn't be long now."

It occurred to me that this would be good practice for when we had kids—not that I'd say this out loud to Stephanie. It wasn't like she was acting like a whining toddler, but the waiting was starting to make me uneasy and put me in a bad mood. The thought of going through this with kids, and ones who wouldn't necessarily behave as well as their adult mother, made me rethink the idea of starting a family.

To be clear, marriage to Steph was still part of the equation. Or at least, eventual marriage. Just the whole reproduction part kind of freaked me out.

The blood results came back, and it turned out that Stephanie had gotten food poisoning. Probably from the damaged chicken soup, but there was no way to be 100% sure. Dr. Johnson gave me a prescription for antibiotics, to be taken three times a day for the next ten days, even if Stephanie felt better after one or two days.

"The germs have to be entirely out of your body, but you will feel the positive effects shortly," he explained. "You must use up the entire bottle, but you probably will not need a refill. If the symptoms persist after a week, come back and see me, and I will conduct further testing."

He stressed that Stephanie take it easy over the next week or so, which meant remaining in bed or in a chair/couch. No unnecessary exercise. Plain foods only for the next seventy-two hours. Chicken soup was fine, as long as it was not contaminated. Get plenty of rest and drink plenty of fluids. Avoid ice cream, but popsicles were fine for her throat. And then more advice. Most of which I'd already been doing, but I guess it wouldn't hurt for her to hear it again.

He gave me the prescription directly—telling me to pay for it when I checked out at the desk. Stephanie didn't have medical insurance (Vinnie didn't pay for that, and she didn't make enough to pay for it with the money that she made), so I paid for the drugs. It occurred to me that once Steph and I got married, she'd qualify for medical insurance under my plan. In the meantime, I hoped that she wouldn't get so sick that she'd need really expensive drugs, or have to spend extended periods of time in the hospital. Her previous visits had been costly—with the exception of the seventeen stitches caused by Jimmy Alpha's gunshot wound, I'd been able to handle the bills without letting her know about it.

I took Stephanie home, had her eat a bowl of cheerios, and then put her back to bed. When I checked on her ten minutes later, she'd already fallen into a deep sleep.


	7. Recovering

I woke up from a sound sleep feeling a little dizzy and disoriented, but without any nausea. Leaning in front of me was Joe Morelli, holding a tray of food. I could tell that he was concerned by the way his eyebrows were creased.

I tried to sit up in bed and felt a wave of dizziness pass over me suddenly, only to disappear just as quickly. I removed my hands from under the covers to reach for the tray. Morelli scooted in bed next to me, keeping one arm on the tray so that it was less likely to spill. Once it became evident that I could eat without spilling anything, he loosened his hold on the tray and put a hand over my forehead.

"How are you feeling?" he asked me.

His hand was cool against my brow, but it had felt colder earlier when he'd done the same thing.

I took a bite of apple, chewed slowly, and swallowed before responding. "A little better. How long was I asleep?"

"About three hours. It's just after one. I woke you up because we needed to get some food into you."

I stared at the items on the tray. Chicken soup sat among various fruits.

"This isn't from the same batch, is it?" I asked warily.

Morelli shook his head. "Triple checked the can. No dents, holes…nothing. It's totally safe to eat."

I took a tentative spoonful. It tasted all right, but so did the other batch. Then again, taste buds were supposed to be off when you got sick. Well, if Morelli said he'd checked three times, then I believed him. After last night's scare, he wasn't likely to make the same mistake twice.

"Are you angry about what happened?"

I swallowed the spoonful. I'd have liked to just shake my head, but Morelli had probably been beating himself up about the whole thing. I knew him well enough to know that he wanted to _hear_ that I wasn't mad at him. Didn't blame him.

"I'm not mad, Joe." Long pause as he waited for me to continue. "Kind of scared, though."

He put a protective arm around my shoulder. "Me too, Cupcake. I was scared out of my mind last night. I hated to see you that sick."

I managed a short laugh. "I hated _being_ that sick."

Morelli nodded. I continued to eat, not saying anything. Morelli didn't encourage me to say anything else, and he didn't speak as I ate. I wouldn't say the silence was awkward, but it wasn't exactly comfortable. He must have been giving himself hell for making me go through last night. Whether the can had been damaged in the store, or he'd damaged it on the way home, the result was the same. I'd gotten food poisoning, and spent half of the night throwing up soup and blood. Directly or indirectly, that had been his fault.

Except I really couldn't get too mad about it. Maybe I was still too weak to care, but my attitude about the whole thing was that it was over with. I didn't want to waste energy with being angry at Morelli. I just wanted to get better and go back to my life. I liked that he was taking care of me, and doing a decent job for the most part, but I preferred taking care of myself. I valued my independence. I didn't want someone—even someone I loved—hovering over me any longer than necessary.

Not that I felt resentful of Morelli's care. The opposite, really. I'd been annoyed when he'd taken me—by force—from my apartment, but I'd known deep down that Morelli had been acting in my best interest. I would have gotten better on my own, sooner or later, but I was fortunate enough not to have to worry about taking care of myself when I was sick. Ultimately, it was easy to let Morelli take over.

"I don't blame you," I told him once I'd finished eating. "I _don't_."

The lack of energy I'd had upon waking up seemed to be gone now that food was in my body. I wouldn't say I felt well enough to run a marathon, but I could certainly sit up in bed and enjoy being with Morelli for a half an hour or so. The chills the food poisoning gave me were long gone, and I felt very comfortable sitting/leaning back in bed under a few blankets and a soft comforter. Morelli's arm wrapped around me gave me more physical warmth, but it was also emotional warmth. I guessed I felt a little like Goldilocks at that moment—not too hot, not too cold.

Morelli moved the now empty tray of food over to a table. His arms tightened around me, and I let out a contented sigh. "That's good to hear, Cupcake."

"The sigh, or the fact that I don't blame you?" I asked, only partly kidding.

He let out a short laugh. "Both. But I meant the fact that you don't think I'm the world's worst boyfriend."

I shook my head. "You'd have to do more than that to qualify. Besides, you weren't even _trying_ to get me sick. I'm pretty sure that disqualifies you from the competition."

Morelli stroked my hair. "Who's in this competition?"

"So far, just Dickie. Alpha and Ramirez were competing, but they literally died trying."

Morelli snorted. "That's terrible, Cupcake!" Then he kissed me on the forehead. "But true. Unfortunately. Does this mean Dickie's next?"

I shrugged and nestled against his chest. "I don't want to talk about him right now."

Another laugh. "Don't blame you there."


	8. Discussions

When my eyes opened, I knew the worst was over. I still felt like I'd been hit by a vehicle, but the vehicle was closer to a small car than a huge truck. The pain in my throat had gone from nearly impossible to swallow to a dull ache. Something that a few cough drops or hard candies would fix. My headache was as bad as ever, but it wasn't any worse. I still felt queasy in my stomach, sort of like a combination of cramps and the ache you got when you were really, really hungry. If Morelli had a heating pad, maybe I could borrow that. If he didn't, maybe he could borrow my mom's?

Or maybe not. I'd wait and see. I didn't want my mom coming over and fussing, or worse, having her drag me back home and taking over the task of "getting Stephanie well". Food poisoning aside, Joe Morelli had been doing a good job at taking care of me without hovering, and I knew that my mom would hover until she practically suffocated me.

I looked around the room, but Morelli was nowhere in sight. Maybe he'd gone to work. Couldn't say I blamed him—if you got too behind at his job, it would take twice as long to catch up. I didn't want Morelli having to work more nights than necessary on the off chance that I'd get more sick when he was at work and he wouldn't be there if there was an emergency.

I rolled over on my side, taking in the room. I'd spent plenty of nights at Morelli's house in the past, but hadn't paid a whole lot of attention to the details of his room. We'd spent time there together, but the activities that went on in there made the thought of observing the wallpaper or color of his dresser drawers less interesting. Last night, we hadn't had sex, but I'd been too busy running to the bathroom to pay much attention to the physical attributes of his sleeping area.

Morelli wasn't there now to distract me, so I looked around to give myself something to think about. The bed I was sleeping in was either king sized or queen sized. The rest of the room wasn't exactly huge, but there was space to move around in it. The walls were painted light blue, which almost matched the rug. A small mirror hung above a chest of drawers which could double as a vanity table. Not that Morelli did much of that, but the house _had_ belonged to his aunt, and she had probably wanted to use it on occasion to check her hair or makeup. Did the older Morelli women wear much makeup? The wives must have, at some point, in an attempt to look attractive for their husband. Not that it would have made a huge difference, since Morelli men cheated on their wives as a rule. But I guessed that no wife wanted to feel unattractive.

It was a depressing observation. I knew that Joe Morelli had mostly broken out of the mold that his male relatives had set for him. He'd been the only one in his family not to turn into a drunk who cheated on his wife and hit his kids. Then again, the last two might not have happened because he hadn't gotten married yet. Morelli men _did_ get married, and they usually got married on the young side, because they didn't live especially young, yet always managed to father plenty of kids within the marriage state. I knew that Joe Morelli had gotten into more than a few fist fights in his time, and he'd certainly been with his fair share of women. Still, to my knowledge, neither of these things had occurred within the past five years. At least. Burg women loved to gossip, and if Joe Morelli was growing into his father, people would know it. Moreover, my parents wouldn't be nearly as happy with the engagement as they were right now.

Thinking about that increased the throbbing in my head. It wasn't like Joe had proposed in private. He'd done so in front of his mother and grandmother, thereby ensuring that every family in the Burg knew about it by lunchtime that day.

It wasn't that I didn't love Joe Morelli. Well, maybe "love" was taking it a little far, but there was definitely attraction, on multiple levels, and respect for the person he'd become. I felt completely safe with him, and even if he did boss me around at times, I knew it was generally for a good reason. Not that this would stop me from fighting with him tooth and nail. I was proud of my stubborn streak. I hoped it would prevent me from becoming a typical Burg housewife if we made it past the wedding ceremony. I just wasn't ready for marriage. I could see myself spending my life with Joe Morelli, but not necessarily in the traditional "you're my wife, so you must stay home and cook for me and bear my children" way. I knew we'd have to have some hard conversations before a wedding could take place, but I also recognized that neither of us was ready for that. I wanted things to stay the way they were, with us being together and there being an understanding that we were a couple, but not with the implication that I'd soon have to become a cook and baby making machine.

If there was one nice thing about being sick, it was the knowledge that Morelli would take care of me in the future. Even if I complained about him interfering and basically calling him a kidnapper, he'd stay with me and give me food and medicine until I was back on my feet. Rub my back and feet without me even asking him to do so, and just _being_ there with me. That was more valuable than painkillers or cough drops.

I heard footsteps, and then a light knocking on the door.

"Steph?"

"I'm up. You can come in," I croaked.

Ugh. My voice still sounded pretty bad.

He headed into the room and sat down next to me on the bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Better. Not great."

Morelli slid closer to me, and I leaned against him. He took this as a cue to pull me into his arms so I was sitting on his lap. Not something I'd mind, but he was sitting on the blankets, rather than under them, so I felt chilled as he removed me from the protective layers. Immediately realizing his mistake, he muttered "sorry" and pulled the covers over both of us. _Much_ better.

"This okay?"

It was more than okay.

"Yes," I managed, resting my head against his chest as a wave of sleepiness washed over me. "Was I asleep long?"

Morelli began to stroke my hair. "Most of the day, Cupcake. I went into work after you'd been asleep for two hours. I left you a note, but I didn't hear from you, so I assumed you'd been asleep the whole time."

I opened my eyes lazily. "A note?"

He nodded towards the dresser. "Just letting you know I'd be back before 6. I figured you'd be hungry by then." He looked at me hopefully. "Are you?"

I shook my head, even though I knew it wasn't want he'd want to see. But I couldn't help it. I could probably drink some water, maybe eat a few cheerios, but I just wasn't hungry. I wasn't _full_, but my stomach was not sending me any messages about it needing food. Was I supposed to force myself to eat? I vaguely remembered a saying about feeding a cold and starving a fever—or maybe it was the other way around—but I was pretty sure that was an old wives tale. How was starving—or being force fed—supposed to help your body recover? Unless they meant "starve" as in don't make the person eat because the body will reject the food?

"Maybe some soup?" he pressed, nuzzling my neck with his head. "It might help your throat." He paused. "I made sure all of the other cans looked okay."

After spending half of the last night throwing up, soup appealed to me about as much as birthday cake. Which was, not at all. But Morelli was right—I needed to eat something, and I'd have more luck swallowing a food that was mostly liquid than chewing on something which required actual digestion. Last night _had_ been a fluke. I really didn't blame Morelli—he'd been busy and panicked, after all. I might hold it against him during our next fight, but I really wasn't angry at him right now. Mostly, I was just relieved that the food poisoning incident was behind us.

Sort of. The doctor had told Morelli that I might still need to throw up over the next day or so, but most of the harmful bacteria _was_ out of my system.

I nodded, and Morelli scooped me up into his arms along with a few of the blankets. I must have given him a puzzled look, because he explained that he thought I might want to sit on the couch and watch some TV.

"I'm going to move the TV into the bedroom after you eat," he informed me, once I was settled on the couch and tucked in so tightly I could hardly move my legs. "You'll need to spend the next few days resting, even if you feel completely better by tomorrow, and you'll need something to keep you busy while I'm at work."

I didn't mind the part about the TV, but hearing Morelli tell me that I'd _have_ to stay in bed for the next few days sent a spurt of anger through me. Who did he think he was, telling me to stay in bed?

I'd have liked to give some biting retort about him causing me to get worse, but I stopped myself in time. I wasn't up to a fight, not right now, and he wasn't bossing me around for the sake of being a jerk. If I felt completely better tomorrow or the next day, and Morelli was still babying me, I'd deal with it then. In the meantime, I _was_ still weak, and didn't need to waste any energy yelling at him. Or make my throat any worse by doing so.

He brought the soup in, along with some apple slices, juice, and a pill. I took the pill first, figuring that was the most important, and only gagged slightly as I swallowed it. I'm usually really good with taking pills—not that I need to do so very often. I rarely take multivitamins, even though I know I should. It's one of those things doctors tell you to do—like dentists and flossing—which you know isn't a big deal and won't take very long, but you don't do because it's a pain. And, if you're like me, you resent being told to do so.

I nibbled at one of the apple slices as I waited for the soup to cool down from scalding hot to cool enough to drink without burning my tongue. It tasted the same as yesterday, and I managed to eat all of the chicken, noodles, and most of the broth. By the time I was finished, though, I had no appetite for the remaining apple slices. Morelli snagged those as we watched TV. He kept an arm wrapped around my shoulder as he ate, but I knew he wasn't focused on the game because his eyes kept wandering. He was trying to act normal, but he was concerned and doing a poor job at disguising it.

After Morelli turned off the TV, he kept his promise and moved it into his bedroom. He made me stay on the couch while he moved the TV, saying he didn't want me to fall down the stairs because he couldn't support me. Any other time, this would have sent me over the edge, but I felt touched and grateful that he cared. True, the dizziness had mostly disappeared, but I understood the cause for his concern.

He reappeared in the living room after he'd assembled the TV, which was good because I'd been starting to nod off. Without preamble, Morelli scooped me up in his arms and carried me upstairs.

As a whole, I don't like being carried. Probably, I enjoyed it as a kid, but I was a few feet smaller and at least fifty pounds skinnier. When my mom or dad picked me up and carried me to bed, I felt safe and knew they wouldn't drop me. I especially liked it when my dad held me in his arms, because he was stocky even then, and that made him comfortable to lean against. My mom had been reasonably thin up until her 40's, when she didn't become fat, but became more round. Probably because of all of the butter and whipped cream she used in her cooking. Not that I was complaining. Good metabolism only lasts so long, which is why I intend to make the most of it while I can.

Anyway, being carried as an adult feels weird. Sure, Morelli was a few inches taller than me, and at least fifty pounds heavier—all muscle, I was sure—and I knew he wouldn't drop me. But there's still the sense of instability, and I don't really get the whole romantic side of a guy carrying his girlfriend or wife. Even now, while I was touched by the gesture, I mostly wanted to be on my own feet.

I did the whole brushing my teeth and face thing, and then Morelli walked behind me as I headed to the bed. I was still wearing my flannel nightgown from having changed after going to the ER, so I could skip that step of my nightly bedtime routine. I settled under the covers, felt Morelli secure his arms around me so he was holding me in a backwards hug, and fell into a deep sleep uninterrupted by night sweats, chills, or the need to throw up. When I woke up the next morning, I wouldn't say I felt like myself again, but I felt a lot better than I had the previous morning.

The next couple of days passed with me sleeping, eating small amounts of food only because of Morelli's prodding, watching TV, occasional trips to the bathroom for general hygiene purposes, reading books Morelli picked up for me at the library, and listening to those books via this device called a "Playaway" when my eyes got tired of reading.

I'd never been much of a reader. It just wasn't something I did for fun. I wasn't one of those kids who could pass hours with their nose in a book. My imagination was active, and I preferred to be the one telling the story, creating the adventure. Maybe, with some encouragement, I would have written my own stories, but my parents either didn't think to encourage me to do this, or thought my imagination was active enough without writing my ideas down on paper. My grades had been average, so if I had a talent for writing, my teachers didn't see it. As a result, I plodded my way through school and, eventually, college doing the necessary reading and writing in order to get passing grades.

Reading still didn't exactly appeal to me now, but there was only so much TV I could watch. Morelli was nice and checked in on me, spending time talking with me and giving me back rubs and foot rubs. But he had work to do, especially having taken off some time to get me settled at his house and take me to the ER, so even weekends weren't free of commitment. Books and audio books provided a source of entertainment when I felt like I couldn't sleep anymore without turning into a zombie.

Morelli got me a pretty wide selection of reading material, ranging from celebrity gossip magazines to light adult fiction, to (under the suggestion of the librarian working at the front desk) some young adult fiction which included a few titles pretty popular in the Burg, but I hadn't bothered to get my hands on before.

One of the titles was "Twilight".


	9. Stephanie and Twilight

The "Twilight" series were one of those rare set of teenage books that Burg housewives and their teenage daughters devoured. The housewives because, ostensibly, it gave them a chance to relate to their teenage daughters. The teenage daughters because it was teen romance fiction. I'd never gotten into the craze, being neither a Burg housewife or a teenage girl, but in all fairness, I probably would have devoured the series had it come out when I was a teenager. I could easily see myself and Mary Lou spending hours debating the merits of Edward over Jacob.

Both characters had their appeal and traits I would have found distasteful. Edward was the vampire, so he was sort of a bad guy superhero. A bad guy because he was a vampire, and a superhero because he had super powers and didn't actually eat humans. He and the Cullens, who made up his "family"—and I use the term loosely—did not believe in consuming human blood. They needed blood to survive, so they killed animals and drank their blood. They claimed that this made them "vegetarians", but I was sure that animal rights groups like PETA would have differing views on the matter.

Bottom line was that if you ran into Edward's family late at night, you were safe from being killed. Unless you happened to be an animal. If Morelli and I were taking a walk with Bob and encountered one of the Cullen tribe, Bob might qualify as a snack, but Morelli and I were relatively safe.

Actually, Rex would probably be safe from Edward and his family, because of his being a hamster and not having a lot of blood compared to a deer or a lion.

Not that Rex spent much time out of his cage, much less on walks with me, Morelli, and Bob.

Anyway, Bella's other potential love interest was Jacob, who was a werewolf, but he didn't go around biting other people to turn them into werewolves. It was more of a genetic trait. Apparently, once you reach a certain age, you find out that you can turn into a wolf at will. Werewolves have super strength and also form groups, known as packs, and communicate with their minds when the pack members are in wolf form. Problem is, you can't keep anything secret if you're in your wolf form you're your pack. Talk about embarrassing.

Werewolves, apparently, hate vampires, so Edward and Jacob were sort of perpetually at war. They wouldn't kill each other because the Cullens didn't actually eat humans, but if they created any more vampires, they would risk the werewolves' vengeance.

Bella was kind of the protagonist of the story because she fell in love at first sight—or practically—with Edward, who initially wanted to drink her blood, but basically got over that once she almost died. Edward didn't want to turn her into a vampire because he thought that vampires had no souls, meaning that if Bella died after she became a vampire (extremely rare, but it could happen), she wouldn't go to heaven. Bella was too in love/infatuated with Edward to really care about what might happen to her in a few thousand years.

Edward was really overprotective of Bella, because she was a human, going so far as to put her under house arrest and prevent her from spending time with Jacob. Jacob, on the other hand, wasn't exactly a huge advocator for woman's rights. If Bella _did_ become a vampire, she was dead to Jacob. He might or might not kill her outright, but she was dead to him all the same. Also, he spent a lot of time badmouthing Edward because, apparently, being a vampire and being an evil person go hand in hand in a werewolf's mind. When it came down to it, Edward seemed like the more open minded of the two. Not that this was saying much, because I wouldn't want to be with _either_ of them.

I figured that Bella would end up becoming a vampire by the end of the series. I mean, if she chose Jacob, it wasn't like he could turn her into a werewolf. She'd always feel left out. Besides, her feelings for Jacob were more like brother/sister than the obsessive love interest she claimed to feel for Edward.

It was Monday morning, and the vomiting from the chicken soup had completely stopped. My throat felt almost normal, my stomach wasn't feeling queasy at the merest hint of food, and my dizziness was only a problem if I stood up too quickly. Basically, I was almost feeling normal, but Morelli kept me in bed at all times, except for showers, brushing my teeth, and going to the bathroom. I complained about it once, and he threatened to superglue me to the bed.

I was pretty sure he was kidding.

"Okay, so here's what I don't get," I told Morelli after I finished the second book.

I'd started off listening to the books, but that took too long, and the voice of Bella really grated on me.

Morelli was dressed for work, but was sitting in bed reading his newspaper. We'd both eaten breakfast—him eggs, bacon, toast, and sausage washed down with orange juice, while I successfully managed to eat an entire bowl of cheerios and grape juice without my stomach revolting—and he was sitting next to me in bed. I knew he'd be leaving for work pretty soon, but I thought it was sweet that he wanted to spend that extra time with me before heading off to fight crime. Anyway, Morelli looked up from his newspaper to smile at me. I was sure he was wondering what I was about to complain about with the "Twilight" books.

"Yeah?"

We'd had variations of what I call our "Twilight conversations", or "why these books don't make sense but are addictive" conversations, multiple times during the past couple of days. What can I say? I was still kind of sick, but my brain was working well enough to know a bad story when I read one.

"So vampires can't die, right?"

"Right, Cupcake, but they can be killed." He gave me a mock serious look, as though contemplating threatening to kill me.

"Yeah, but they can't just die on their own."

"Okay…"

After I'd finished the first book, I'd made Morelli read it. He ended up finishing all four books over the weekend. I was pretty sure he found them as ridiculous as I did, so I figured he enjoyed our conversations about them.

"Then why do they need to drink blood? Yeah, they'll get weak without it, but if the only way a vampire can be killed is by a werewolf and the Vulpuri—"

"Volturi."

"Whatever." I took a minute to glare at him before continuing. He put up his arms in mock surrender. "Those are the only two ways to die. Well, did it ever occur to the vampires that maybe this blood thing is an addiction, and if they just stop drinking it, they'll eventually stop needing it?"

Morelli put his newspaper on the desk before answering. "You mean, go cold turkey or drink less and less to get your body to wean your body off of it?"

I hid a mental grimace. It was the first time I'd ever heard Joe Morelli say "wean", and I really hoped it would be the last. There are some words you never want to hear from your boyfriend/sort of fiancé.

"Right."

I expected some retort about that being really painful, like he'd know from experience, or how the books were just fiction and I shouldn't get caught up in them. But he didn't. He just sat there for a minute, paper still in his hands, pondering what I'd just said. I figured I'd drive my point home.

"It's basically an addiction. They know they can't die, but they'll get really weak without the blood. Okay, fine. But what about the whole 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger' part? Sure, it's great that Edward and his family aren't killing humans, but wouldn't it be better for them, in the long term, if they could just get themselves off blood? You know how Dr. Cullen said that he's not even really affected by human blood anymore, because he'd been exposed to it for so long? It seems like the same thing would happen if they just decided to quit altogether."

"Okay, Cupcake. But to play devil's advocate, what if that turned everyone crazy? The Cullens have a good balance with drinking blood but not drinking _human_ blood. Maybe, if they tried to stop altogether, they'd end up so deprived of blood that animal blood no longer worked?"

"But they can't die!" I objected. "They _want_ blood, but they're not going to die without it."

Morelli grinned at me. "I might not die if I don't have sex, but I'll probably wish I was dead if I go without it for too long."

I threw a pillow at his face. "You're not taking this seriously."

He threw the pillow back in my general direction. "It's _fiction_, Steph. Not even good fiction. There are so many flaws in it, and you want to pick apart this one?"

I pouted, not completely serious. "Seems like this one is the whole basis for the vampire mythology. If the Cullens can give up blood, maybe other vampire groups will try it. It's not like vampires really _want_ to be reliant on humans for blood. Sure, I get that it tastes good, but it's still a weakness. I mean, what if the world ends and there's no humans left? Then they're all forced to become vegetarian."

"Sounds like a good idea for a fanfic."

I only half snorted. I wasn't much good at writing, and I probably wouldn't do it. Besides, didn't you have to like a book in order to write about it? Not to mention, there was the whole copyright, you could be sued, aspect. Even though that rarely happened—kind of like illegally downloading music.

"I'm going to try one of the other books you brought me before my brain gets completely corrupted…" I glanced at the table and picked up one with a black background and a bird on the cover. The title read "The Hunger Games". Couldn't be worse than Twilight…

"Speaking of sex," Morelli asked, moving to sit next to me in bed.

"You threatened to use superglue on me less than twenty-four hours ago," I reminded him, opening the cover. "_No._"

Morelli closed the book I'd chosen and returned it to the table. "You know I was kidding."

True.

I reached across Morelli, intending to pick up the book, but he flipped me over and stared at me with his chocolate eyes.

"Ow," I complained, even though it didn't hurt.

I took a quick survey of my body, debating whether the benefits of having sex would outweigh the discomfort I'd feel during, and after, being intimate with Morelli. I was leaning in favor of not having sex when, sensing my reluctance, he got off me. He did give me a long kiss on the lips before doing so, which I was happy to return.

"Mmm," I murmured, eyes closed.

I could hear Morelli grin. "Does this mean you might be feeling well enough soon?"

I took a moment to consider. The dizziness had returned, so I knew it would only get worse with more exertion. If I took a long nap, though, I might be feeling up to it later that night…and I _did_ miss being with Morelli in that way…

"Not yet," I admitted. "But I'm getting there. Maybe by the time you get back tonight…"

Morelli grinned widely, gave me a long hug, and then kissed me again. This time on the forehead.

"Make sure you get plenty of rest today," he cautioned me. "Drink a lot of fluids."

I rolled my eyes and laughed. "Maybe. Definitely soon."

Tomorrow night at the latest.

He smoothed some hair back from my face. "Well, I don't want to pressure you, but I gotta say…I can't wait, Cupcake."

He tucked me in, and I burrowed under the covers, the smile still on my face. Widening. Me neither.

A/N: As always, constructive reviews would be GREATLY appreciated! It only takes a minute or two.

For those who have my story on alert, it might look like I added two new consecutive chapters. I did, but one of those chapters was an earlier one I forgot to post. Chapter 7 is new, chapter 8 is old, and this chapter (chapter 9) is new. Hope this wasn't too confusing!


	10. Reading and Intimacy

I spent the entire morning and afternoon in bed, dressed in my favorite pajamas, reading the "Hunger Games" series. While the books were pretty dark for my tastes, I had to admit that they were a _lot_ easier to read than the "Twilight" series. For one thing, Katniss was a lot more likeable as a heroin than Bella. Katniss actually volunteers to participate in the "hunger games", which is basically a fight to the death among twenty-four people, so that her little sister doesn't have to compete. Also, Katniss tries to provide for her family by hunting game in the "illegal" territory, while Bella just wants to have sex with Edward and become a vampire. I could make an argument that Katniss wants her family to be safe even more than she wants to live. I had to admire her for that, even if she was a fictional character.

I wondered if life here would ever evolve to the way things were in Katniss' world. Apparently, there were huge global disasters before the government took over, so I guessed that Katniss' ancestors were part of a small group of people who survived these disasters. I could understand why her government wanted to keep people from rebelling, if the result to rebellion was extinction. Still, sending kids to kill each other seemed pretty extreme.

I began to wonder how I'd do if I was in that situation. If I'd been chosen to participate in the Hunger Games, and no one volunteered to go in my place, I probably wouldn't _win_, but I was confident I'd make it pretty far. In my job, you have to be prepared to beat up the bad guys if they get too close. Or, you have to be able to run away—fast—if it looks like they'd beat you in physical combat. My preferred method of defense was to kick the males in the nuts, and it had prevented me from being hurt _too_ badly or (more important) from being raped. So far, anyway.

If I was in the arena with Morelli or Ranger, my best chance of survival would be to make an alliance with them, and hope that they got knocked off by some natural disaster. My chances at surviving at one on one combat with Morelli weren't exactly low, but it would be easy compared to fighting Ranger. Then again, if Ranger showed himself to be a threat, there would be at least twenty other people waiting to destroy him. In fact, he might die in the beginning, at the place where the people who set up the name placed all of the supplies for the taking. The exact name of the place slipped my mind, and I didn't feel like going back through the books to search for it.

I amused myself for the next couple of hours by placing myself, Morelli, and Ranger in different districts, and figuring out ways to dismember them with various weapons. It was very "Wonder Woman" of me. Later, it occurred to me that Ranger and Morelli might try to sacrifice themselves for me, which kind of took the fun out of my figuring out different ways to kill them.

Morelli returned home around 6PM, grinning ear to ear. I felt bad that I'd spent the better part of the last hour thinking up good ways to kill him.

"Hey, Cupcake," he greeted, pressing a light kiss against my forehead. "How are you feeling?"

"Hungry," I replied. "What's for dinner?"

Morelli grinned widely. "Do you want to start with dinner…or dessert?"

I rolled my eyes. "I need food before I can think about sex, Joe."

He sat on the bed next to me. "How's your stomach? Do you think you can handle pizza, or would you rather stick with chicken soup and fruit?"

I chewed on my lip, evaluating the options. The idea of pizza didn't make my stomach turn, and I'd had enough chicken soup to last me a lifetime. Fruit was okay, and maybe some veggies…especially if they were piled on the pizza…"Maybe a slice wouldn't kill me…"

"I stopped at Pinos on the way home. How about you start off with half a slice and see how your stomach handles it?" Morelli suggested.

I nodded in agreement. "Can we eat downstairs? I need a change of scenery."

"How about the back yard? I could bring a couple of chairs out, and you could wear your PJs without attracting attention."

"Is it warm out?" I asked, getting up from the bed. No dizziness followed.

"Yeah, it's gorgeous out. It should stay light out for at least another hour. Want me to carry you?"

I smiled at Morelli. "That's sweet, but I'd rather walk if I can handle it."

He stayed next to me while I walked down the stairs, ready to catch me if I seemed the slightest bit unsteady. I was relieved to note that my dizziness had completely disappeared.

Morelli grabbed a couple of blankets (for me) and two lawn chairs before heading outside. I made myself comfortable, and he headed inside to retrieve the food and a small table his aunt must have kept for this type of thing. The food looked and smelled good, but I knew I'd better take it slow or my stomach would rebel. I didn't want to spend another night in the bathroom with my head in the toilet.

I started with the soup because, even though I was pretty sick of it, I wanted to have something in my stomach before approaching the pizza. It went down easily enough, so I turned my focus towards the half a slice of pizza. There weren't quite as many toppings on my slice as usual—probably, Morelli had requested that. Or he'd picked them off and eaten them before handing me my portion.

I took a small bite and chewed on it longer than I would have before swallowing. My next few bites were larger and I spent less time chewing. I normally wolf down my first slice of pizza in a matter of minutes, but Morelli had finished his first piece before I was halfway done with my half slice.

"You okay?" he asked me, eying me as he folded up his second piece and began shoving that in.

"Yeah, just being extra careful," I replied. "I think I'm ready for mostly normal foods."

He nodded, took a swig of beer, and then said, "Gotta take it easy after getting the flu."

Not to mention food poisoning.

We didn't talk very much throughout the meal, but it was a comfortable kind of silence. I sat back in my chair and savored the feeling of sunlight on my face, of the breeze in my hair. My parents' Italian Hungarian marriage landed me with fair skin that burned rather than tanned, but I knew from the occasional look in the mirror that being stuck inside for several days with _no_ exposure to the sun gave me a ghostly appearance. I hadn't changed from my pajamas or my nightgown to jeans since my visit to the hospital, but I suspected that I'd lost some weight as well. I'd be able to guess how much once I put on a pair of jeans and determined how loose the waistband fit.

"Anything exciting going on at work?" I asked after finishing the entire slice of pizza.

Morelli shrugged. "The usual. Shootings, a few drug dealers, and two domestic abuse cases."

It wasn't unlike a typical day in my life, but I wasn't going to _say_ that.

We stayed outside for another half hour or so, enjoying the early spring weather. When the sun started to go down, Morelli got up from his chair.

"You ready to head in?"

I nodded, stood up, and grabbed the blankets. "Can I help with anything?"

Morelli looked like he was going to say no, but thought better of it. "Take the dishes in. I'll handle the furniture."

"You sure?"

He gave me a peck on the forehead. "You'll need your energy tonight, remember?"

I smiled and rolled my eyes. "I remember."

I left the blankets on the couch while I washed the dishes. I'd just about finished putting away the last plate when Morelli snuck up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist.

"Boo!"

I turned around, surprised but not exactly scared, since I recognized the voice. "Sorry, Joe, but I don't have sex with ghosts."

He pulled me close to him. "Smart aleck."

I snuggled against him. "For a ghost, you feel awfully real."

"Real enough for gorilla sex?" Morelli whispered into my ear.

"Hmm." I pretended to consider. "No thanks. That's too weird for me."

A peck on the forehead. "Good thing I'm not really a ghost."

Before I knew what was happening, Morelli had lifted me into his arms and was carrying me upstairs.

Afterwards, I lay on the bed with my eyes closed feeling completely relaxed, next to Morelli. He had one arm wrapped around my shoulder, and I imagined that the other one was resting at his side. I opened my eyes and saw that he was watching me with a tentative look on his face.

"You okay?"

I yawned and shut my eyes. "Mmm."

I knew I was going to sleep _very_ soundly that night, but it was worth it. Besides, this wasn't necessarily a new thing after being with Morelli.

"Steph?"

My eyes opened again. "Yeah, Joe?"

"My boss was talking to me the other day. Telling me that I had put in too many hours and was in danger of exceeding my paid time off."

I wasn't quite sure where he was going with this. It was no secret that cops—but especially Morelli—put in long hours and the pay wasn't great. I didn't know the specifics about how the benefits worked, but I knew that he rarely took days off, so I could see how they would start to add up.

"My boss told me that if I didn't take three consecutive days off by the end of the month, they'd have to take disciplinary action," he continued.

"What kind of disciplinary action?" I wondered aloud. My mind was still not working at its usual capacity, and I found myself getting annoyed that Morelli hadn't told me about this _before_ sex.

Morelli laughed. "He said that I'd be put on paid house arrest. I told him I had a better idea."

"Oh?"

Morelli put another arm around me, and I nestled against his warmth, now hardly paying attention to anything he was saying. "I was thinking," he began, "that you and I could take a mini vacation, an extended weekend trip. What do you say we head out to Point Pleasant in a week or so?"


	11. Returning to Normalcy

Morelli's idea of spending a few days in Point Pleasant was as appealing as it was unexpected. We'd been together for several months, but we never really went away together. In fact, we rarely went out on dates. It wasn't that we didn't spend a lot of time together—unless Morelli had to go undercover or my grandmother had decided to move into my apartment, we saw each other several times a week. We'd order in food from Pinos or Sal's Steakhouse or another favorite restaurant. We'd watch TV together. We'd have sex after an hour or so of TV watching. Sometimes, we'd go back for more TV after sex. That had more to do with the fact that sex occurred spontaneously and frequently when we were together than either of us being TV addicts. If we hadn't seen each other for awhile, we'd get intimate before eating, and then have to reheat the food a couple of hours later. On occasion, Morelli cooked for us, but ordering takeout—or using up the leftovers my mom had sent home the previous day—was much easier.

My point was that things were now pretty casual between us. There wasn't much point in getting dressed up to go out if we couldn't keep our hands off of each other before we even left for the restaurant. I wouldn't say Morelli and I had _no_ control…well, okay, maybe _he_ had no control. I preferred not to be fainting from hunger when we were about to have sex. So, takeout seemed like the best choice for both of us. Good food, good company, no waiting, and we could interrupt the eating and resume it later if the mood hit us.

We'd never taken off by ourselves for a few days. Not even for one full day. Oh sure, Morelli and I had spent weekends together, but those were at his house or my apartment, and besides, there was usually an interruption at one point or another. Not always on his end. My job doesn't stop on the weekends if I have FTAs to catch.

Speaking of FTAs, I knew I'd have a huge amount of catching up to do when I returned to work. I'd been trying not to think about that. Ranger might handle a few of the higher end skips he wouldn't usually go near as a favor to me, and Lula had a _little_ experience, but even with their help, I'd be working my butt off for the next month trying to catch up.

Okay, maybe not a full month. Maybe just two weeks. Still, it would feel like a month because I'd be under so much pressure to get everything finished.

Especially if we were about to go away for a few days.

I turned to Morelli, who was still waiting for my response.

"Cupcake? You got a blank look on your face for a minute," he commented, putting a hand to my forehead. "You feeling okay?"

"I want to go…I'd love to go," I told him. "I'm just worried about getting everything finished in time. Vinnie's already pretty ticked that I've been out for so long."

I'd received an angry message on my cell phone earlier from him, stating that if I wasn't back tomorrow, I'd better be ready with a doctor's note or I was fired. I hadn't called him back yet.

Morelli's eyes darkened, his cop face in place. "That weasel." Then, he softened and put an arm around me. "We'll talk to him. Figure out a way to do this. If you want to?"

"I _do_ want to," I reassured him. "You know how much I love Point Pleasant. Spending a few days there would be great. Except, won't it be really expensive?"

That thought had just crossed my mind. Hotels on the beach or the boardwalk weren't cheap. Spending a night at a nice one would pretty much drain my savings. Morelli wasn't as pressed for cash as I usually was, but I didn't like the idea of him throwing away a week's pay for a few nights of fun.

So help me, I was becoming responsible.

Morelli's smile returned. "Not in early April. I did some research after I found out I'd need to take time off. It's not super warm, and no one uses the ocean, so most places end up with more empty rooms than used ones. Even with a steep discount. I took a look at some of the places with the best rates, and you'd be amazed at what we can get this time of year. Besides, I've been putting some money aside for awhile in case we wanted to do something like this. It's really _no_ problem, money wise."

A smile was starting to form on my lips. Getting away for a long weekend…a long, uninterrupted weekend with Morelli…spending time on the boardwalk…eating that delicious unhealthy boardwalk food like funnel cake and fried oreos and giant ice cream cones dripping with hardened chocolate…

Well, it was starting to sound a little like paradise.

I could deal with Vinnie. I could manage the skips in the meantime, if I had that to look forward to. I was mostly feeling myself now anyway, and if I could convince Vinnie to let me off the hook until next Monday, I was sure I'd be ready to hunt down the FTAs. Especially if I had Point Pleasant to look forward to.

The smile was turning into a grin. I could taste the fried oreos already…

"That sounds incredible," I told him.

His smile was widening as well. "Speaking of incredible, are you ready for tonight?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Maybe if you tone it down to 'really good', Joe. I'm not _completely_ well yet. I want to have sex tonight, but maybe not a sex marathon."

He stroked my cheeks and kissed me briefly on the forehead, then longer on the mouth. "All right, Cupcake. Tonight, I'll go easy on you. The serious stuff…we can save _that_ for our trip."

I laughed as the kisses continued.

The next morning, I woke up feeling well rested and _very_ happy. Morelli had kept his promise, and while the previous evening had been great, we hadn't done anything strenuous enough to cause a relapse in exhaustion or my previous symptoms. I took a mental inventory of myself. The sore throat was long gone. No headache to speak of. No dizziness. No pain in my stomach or anywhere else. I'd slept very soundly, so I wasn't at all tired. I knew I wouldn't be running a marathon anytime soon, but I was feeling at least 95% myself. Maybe I should go back to work and try to take on a low energy case. Not a wife abuser, but maybe a computer genius who'd been so busy working on his programs that he'd just forgotten to show up for court. Or maybe a grandfather who'd accidentally drank too much wine one night and had been arrested for a DUI, and felt so embarrassed about getting caught that he didn't want to face the court. Something small like that.

Besides, if there was nothing that minor available, I could always invoke Lula's help. Even if I couldn't bring in an FTA that _day_, the fact that I bothered to show up would show Vinnie that I was still serious about my job. Not that he'd say this to my face, but he'd notice, and the message would get through.

Probably.

Morelli was still sleeping when I got up, probably thinking he'd use some of his extra hours by going in late for a few days. Now, he stretched and found me nestled against him. His eyes opened, and he rolled over towards me. A contented grin, associated with sex the previous night, spread over his face.

"Morning, Cupcake."

I wrapped an arm around his. "Morning, Joe."

"How are you feeling?"

The "after last night" wasn't added, but we both knew what he meant.

I smiled. "Good."

He leaned over me and played with one of my curls. "Think you'd be up for round two?"

I pretended to consider. "Hmm."

He kissed me on the lips. "How about now?"

I closed my eyes. "I could be persuaded…"

A half an hour later, we were cuddling against each other, my head in Morelli's chest. I was reconsidering the notion of going back to work, thinking that if I had another half an hour with Morelli, I'd probably be out for the rest of the day. Too soon, though, Morelli stretched and began to sit up.

"I got to get to work," he told me reluctantly. "Are you going to rest today? You'll need it for tonight."

I rolled my eyes and disentangled myself from the covers. "I was going to head into work and see if I can work on some low end FTA. Take it easy."

Morelli looked at me critically. "You sure you're up for that?"

I shrugged and made my way out of our bed. "I feel fine. I won't overdo it."

He gave me a light peck on the forehead. "I trust you, Cupcake, but try to be extra careful. Take it easy for now."

"I will," I promised. I poked him in the chest. "You too."

He laughed, and we walked down the stairs to eat breakfast.

Well, actually, Morelli carried me downstairs. But that had more to do with him feeling romantic than my not being able to walk on my own.

An hour later, I entered the bonds office, feeling ready to take on the day.


	12. Just a Regular Day at Work

Even though my mind was on Point Pleasant for most of that day, I kept quiet about it to Vinnie, Connie, and Lula. After Vinnie's phone call threatening to fire me, I figured that it would be best to wait before broaching the topic with him. I probably could have told Connie and asked her to keep it quiet, but Lula was a regular blabbermouth. I knew that no amount of warning would get her to keep _anything_ secret, so it was better not to try.

Connie greeted me with a smile, some chit chat about my health, and a pile of paperwork on FTAs. My heart nearly sank when I saw the thickness of the papers, but my heart rate returned to normal after seeing that several of the people had a history with Vinnie's bail bonds company. The actual number of people I had to capture wasn't low by any means, but it wasn't so high as to be unbearable.

At least, that's what I kept telling myself.

Remembering my promise to take it easy on the first day, I decided to focus on two of the most straight forward captures: Marcus Mink and Randal Plankman. Mink had been convicted for a DUI, and then was discovered to be carrying concealed. The "carrying concealed" added an extra ten thousand to his bail bond, which meant my capture fee would be a nice five thousand dollars. Five years previous to his current run in with the cops, Mink had been arrested in the past for credit card fraud, having robbed ten people of nearly a hundred thousand dollars. All of the people got their money back, so it was really the credit card company who had suffered.

Mink hadn't shown up for his court date the first time, but this had been when Morty Beyers was still alive and working for Vinnie. Apparently, he'd been able to capture Mink without much trouble, because the capture date took place less than a week after Mink had missed his court date.

Plankman had been charged with "domestic abuse", but what he'd actually done was pretty minor when you hear the phrase "domestic abuse". Apparently, he'd thrown a gravy ladle at his wife's forehead when he'd caught her in bed with another man.

Plankman must have had unusually good aim, and the gravy ladle must have been a cheap one, because the gravy ladle hit his wife in the eye and lodged a splinter there. It also gave her a black eye. She'd first called the cops and then called for an ambulance. The pictures of his wife's face after the hospital had treated her weren't pretty, but the report mentioned that a full recovery was expected.

I figured that it might be a good idea to purchase a pair of cheap glasses, or maybe safety goggles, at the supermarket in case Plankman got any ideas when he saw me, but other than that, I really wasn't too worried.

It wasn't that I condone what Plankman had done, but I could appreciate the fact that he'd been angry when he'd caught his wife doing the deed with another man. A part of me wondered why he'd chosen to go back and grab a gravy ladle to administer the punishment, but maybe Plankman had already been holding the gravy ladle when he caught his wife. At any rate, it wasn't a mystery that was going to keep me up late at night. My capture fee for Plankman would be significantly less than for Mink, so I'd go after Mink first.

After a quick run to Dunkin Donuts, we parked Lula's Firebird outside of Mink's house. I'd finished my Bavarian crème donut on the way there, but Lula had purchased a dozen and was just now finishing the eighth one.

Maybe it was because I still wasn't 100% healthy, but the idea of eating eight donuts made me want to vomit. Lula was happily chomping away, guarding the second bag as though I'd realize my mistake in only buying one and demand some of hers. Around the sixth donut, she eyed me suspiciously as though she expected me to pounce. By the tenth, Lula had stopped guarding her donuts and seemed genuinely surprised at my lack of interest.

"Huhn, you really should have gotten a second donut," she told me as she parked the car. "One donut's not going to be enough to get you through these two captures. 'Sides," she added, glancing at me critically, "you're looking even more bony than ever."

I'd taken a quick look at myself in the mirror that morning. Based on that, and the fact that my jeans actually felt loose, I figured that I'd lost ten pounds since the onset of my cold. This wouldn't have bothered me, but my already small breasts seemed to have taken on the brunt of this weight loss. It was a good thing that Morelli and I were going to visit Point Pleasant before the bathing suit weather began, or else I might have had to go shopping for a new one. Then again, I'd probably gain it all back before we arrived.

I acknowledged Lula's comment with an eye roll. "Let's get this over with," I told her.

"Huhn," she replied, maneuvering herself out of the door. "No need to be so sensitive. Just tryin' to be _helpful_, is all."

Mink's capture was the easiest one I'd ever pulled off. For a guy who'd had a history with the law, he seemed pretty nice.

"I'm Stephanie Plum," I told him. "I represent Vincent Bail Bonds. You missed your court date, and I'm here to give you a ride so we can reschedule it."

Mink, who was a short stocky man who sort of resembled my father ten years ago, looked alarmed. "I thought that was next week…"

"Nope, it was March 15th," Lula informed him.

Mink laughed. "Could have sworn it was the 25th. I suppose this means I'll have to get rebonded?"

"Er, yeah," I admitted.

Mink glanced at his house. "Would you mind waiting while I got my checkbook? I'd rather not spend the time in jail…"

Lula narrowed her eyes at him and wedged herself between him and the front door.

"I suppose that would be all right, so long as you don't mind us keeping an eye on you while you look around for it. _You_ understand," she added, and I swore I could see her batting her eyes at him.

Lula didn't usually go for men like Mink, so I knew her flirting was a total act.

Mink laughed again. "Not at all. This way…"

In the past, I'd been tricked by similar ruses, but Mink was the rare honest criminal. He even held the door open for us as we headed inside, and nodded for us to take a seat at the kitchen table. Once we got settled in, my purse with my pepper spray on the table directly in front of me, Mink headed into his downstairs office. Before I could even get suspicious that he'd find a way to break out of his house, he returned with the checkbook, and we were out of his house within ten minutes.

I didn't even see the point in handcuffing him. An hour later, he'd been released with a new court date and I had his body receipt safely tucked in one of the pockets of my jeans.

"Think he'll remember this new court date?" Lula asked as we left the station.

"Probably, since the new bail bond was twice as much as his old one."

Though it would be nice to have an extra ten thousand dollars handy…

We made a quick stop at the McDonalds drive thru for lunch. I ordered a double cheeseburger, medium fries, and a diet soda. Lula ordered enough food to feed an entire family for a week, and had eaten most of it before I'd even started on the fries. I still had half of them left when she finished, and after seeing her eye them hungrily, I handed them over. I guessed that my appetite hadn't returned to normal yet.

"You're gonna starve, girl," Lula told me as she inhaled them. "Your tiny boobs are gonna disappear if you don't start eating better. That's not what you want, since there's not a whole lot of them to begin with."

I shot Lula a glare, which caused her to shut up and finish off the last of the fries.

I decided to head to Vinnie's to pick up my check before going after Plankman. We threw the trash away in a bin outside the office building. Since Lula had helped—sort of—I had Connie write a separate check for a two hundred dollars. This was more than she usually earned by helping me. I didn't really pay her a set percentage fee for helping. If I did that, she'd end up getting fifty dollars or less half the time, and then upwards of five hundred the rest. It was easier to just give her a set amount—give or take fifty dollars—for each skip she helped me get.

Anyway, Lula claimed that she did it more to protect my "skinny white ass" and for companionship than anything else. If I had to be completely honest with myself, more often than not, she was the reason my FTA would get away.

"Now I can buy me those shoes I saw on sale," she told us. "They had rhinestones on the heels that you could have sworn look like real diamonds."

I guessed I should have expected to have bad luck with Plankman after my easy capture that morning. All things considered, it didn't turn out to be that terrible. We checked in at his house first and a scary looking woman with wild hair, bloodshot eyes, and alcohol on her breath introduced herself as his wife and told us that he was at work.

"He won't be back until late," she rasped. "He does a lot of overtime."

When we checked in at his place of work, though, his boss had said he'd called in sick.

"He's probably sitting in a bar and trying to pick up a nice woman, on account of the fact that he's married to that beast," Lula confided. "I saw that sort of thing all the time in my previous profession."

I glanced at my watch. It was only 1:30, but I was starting to feel tired. Probably, I should go to a few bars before calling it a day, but I didn't think I'd be able to handle the smoke and the noise.

_Just _one_ bar,_ I told myself.

"We'll drive by the closest one, but if he's not there, then I'm calling it a day," I told Lula. "Didn't Connie say you have filing to do?"

Lula snorted. "I _always_ have filing to do. Connie's always forgetting that I'm an assistant bounty hunter as well as a file clerk. She don't realize that protecting your behind is more important to the business than jamming a few files in them overcrowded drawers. 'Sides, I keep telling her that everything's electronic these days." She gave me another critical look. "You need all the help you can get in the protection department. I might ask her for a raise."

Right.

At Lula's suggestion, we drove to one of the larger bars on Stark Street, known for its slightly more affluent crowd. Plankman wasn't exactly rich, but he had a stable job as a manager of one of the departments at the button factory. I couldn't imagine him wanting to risk having his car stolen for the sake of a cheaper drink—even if there was the possibility of getting illegal drugs on the side. The fact was, everything I'd read about Plankman seemed to suggest that he was a regular guy. He might be feeling angry because his wife had cheated on him, and annoyed at being landed with assault charges, but he probably figured that he was the victim of circumstances.

I couldn't really negate that, but I still had the job of bringing him back into the system since he'd failed to appear on his court date. Maybe, like Mink and so many of the other FTAs I'd apprehended, he'd forgotten about the date. Then again, on occasion, there was more to it than met the eye. Since I had a pile of FTAs to apprehend before Morelli and I could take our trip, I was hoping that Plankman was one of the cases that was as straight forward as it first appeared.

"He's right there. In the front, flirting with that skinny ass white woman with size double D breasts," Lula said, eying the front of the room.

I knew which woman Lula was referring to because she was dressed in the same type of clothing that Lula wore on a regular basis. Lots of tight fitting spandex and wild jewelry that seemed normal on Lula but would have looked out of place on anyone else. The woman turned around to look at something, and I noticed that she looked to be in her early to mid 30's, a few tattoos on her bare arms, and super straight red hair that was so long she could have sat on it.

After the woman turned, the man who we figured must be Plankman got up and began running out the door, yelling something about an alien convention. If he hadn't spoken, Lula and I probably would have been on his tail immediately, but Lula and I were too stunned by the outburst to do more than stare off in his general direction for a good ten seconds. Lula took off running before I did, but I overtook her pretty easily. On a good day, I'd like to think that I could have caught up with Plankman, but my lungs began to complain before I'd finished running a full block, and I made the responsible decision and let him go.

"We'll….get…him…tomorrow," I panted, hands on my knees.

"Hell yeah," Lula affirmed, breathing twice as heavily as I was. "We'll…get…you," she managed to gasp in Plankman's general direction.

Given that he was several hundred years ahead of us, I didn't think he'd heard Lula.

Once my chest stopped aching, I stood up and turned to Lula, who was still fighting for air.

"Let's call it a day," I told her. "Can you drive me back to the bonds office?"

Lula grunted and we headed towards her car. I was thinking how I hoped it hadn't been stolen when I heard her let out an anguished cry.

"My baby!" she screamed.

Someone had thrown a rock through one of the back windows. Other than that, the car appeared to be undamaged.

Lula began swearing up a storm as she got inside. "They mess with my car, they mess with me," she fumed, nearly tripping the curb as she backed up. "Those assholes…they are gonna pay."

I was too tired to ask Lula how she knew who'd damaged her car, much less how she was going to make them pay. To be totally honest, I wasn't sure I cared enough to want to know.

"We're going to be using that Buick of yours tomorrow," she informed me, accelerating a good twenty miles above the speed limit. "Even if it does look like a tank on wheels."

I just nodded and closed my eyes, wishing I'd had the sense to quit after getting Mink. Wishing I was in bed…preferably with Morelli. I glanced at the clock on Lula's dashboard, and saw that it was only 2PM. Well, I was going to take a long nap as soon as I got back to Morelli's.

I didn't bother going into Vinnie's office building when we arrived, figuring that he'd just chew me out for not bringing in Plankman. I said goodbye to Lula and drove back to Morelli's. Once there, I took a quick shower, changed into my favorite flannel nightgown, and pulled the sheets and covers over my head.

When I woke up, Morelli's head was in my line of vision. He was smiling, but the crinkle in his eyes showed some concern. I sat up and stretched.

"Hey," I said, still groggy with sleep.

He gave me a kiss on the forehead. "Hey, Sleeping Beauty."

I rolled my eyes at him. "What time is it?"

Morelli crept into the bed and sat down next to me. I nestled against his shoulder. "After six. I called about a half an hour ago to find out if you wanted me to bring home anything other than pizza, but you didn't answer. You okay?"

"Mostly. Did you bring home the pizza?"

"Sure did. Still hot. Want to eat up here or downstairs?"

I took a moment to ponder. I was still pretty groggy, and while the trip downstairs might have been worthwhile if the TV was there, Morelli hadn't moved the TV from his/our bedroom.

"Here," I decided.

"Okay, I'll grab the box and some paper plates. And sodas."

The pizza smelled so good that I thought I could easily eat two or three pieces. We dug in, not talking for a few minutes as we inhaled our first slices. After that, Morelli and I slowed down long enough to be able to exchange conversation.

"How was your day?" he asked me.

I told him about Mink and Plankman. His cop face appeared on his face when I told him about Plankman.

"He's had a lot of trouble with the law before," Morelli told me. "Mostly, the charges get dropped. This wasn't the first time he'd hurt his wife."

I raised an eyebrow. "It wasn't on the paperwork," I pointed out.

Not that I had it with me, but I'd remember something like that. I'd shown Morelli paperwork on FTAs in the past, and there were usually more reports in the official police files than what Vinnie bothered to include in their FTA files.

Morelli shrugged. "Probably not, because the charges were dropped. You know that Vinnie only keeps records of stuff that stay put, because he needs to know about the official past charges for his insurance company. But he's been arrested for hurting his wife three times in the past year alone. His wife always denies the charges, stating she got hurt some other way, and she's never really _seriously_ injured, so we have to let him go with a warning. It's all on his record, but he's never had to make bond before."

I chewed the crust of my second slice of pizza thoughtfully. "Has he been violent towards anyone else?"

Morelli thought hard for a minute. "His mother, but it was the same thing. Also, a female neighbor. Old woman named Bertha Smith or Betty Smite or something like that. She dropped the charges as well."

Oh, great. Maybe I should ask Ranger to take care of this. Sure, the capture fee was well under his thousand dollar minimum, but didn't he kind of owe me for the whole FTA and Ramos thing? Not that he'd look at it that way. Maybe I could ask it of him as a favor. Problem was, then I'd have to deal with repaying him. I already owed him for a lot. Then again, what was one more favor?

"I'm not telling you to let Ranger handle it, but I want you to be extra careful, especially since you've been sick," Morelli told me, watching me closely. "Promise?"

"Yeah. I promise."

One more attempt, and then I'd give it to Ranger.

Maybe. More likely, I'd put Plankman at the bottom of the pile and try to locate another FTA.

Anyway, there were other things to think about. Better things. Like the upcoming Point Pleasant trip.

After we put the remainder of the pizza in the refrigerator and threw out the empty soda cans and paper plates, Morelli grabbed his laptop from the kitchen before we headed back to his room. We watched the news and surfed the channels before deciding that there was nothing worth watching.

It was only 7:30, and I wasn't in the mood for sex yet, so we talked for awhile. Morelli told me a little about his day, which was mostly filled with paperwork about a gang bust he and two of his men had made last week when I'd been too sick to do anything except sleep and eat minimal amounts of food.

"My eyes were ready to fall out of my sockets by the time I could leave," Morelli told me, cuddling me into him. "Seeing you all sleeping and peaceful almost made me want to forget about dinner and join you."

I raised an eyebrow. "Your growling stomach would have woken me up."

I could feel Morelli grinning as he said, "Probably."

"So, about this Point Pleasant trip," I began. "Did you have a specific date in mind?"

"Well, given that it's the middle of March and the weather's been both warm and cold, I figured it would be the same way for the next couple of weeks. Even though it won't be warm enough for swimming in the ocean, I figured it won't be as much fun if we end up staying in the hotel the _entire_ time." His eyes grew soft. "Not that I wouldn't mind us spending some quality time in our hotel."

I smiled. Quality time together was definitely part of the plan.

"So, I checked the rates at a few different places, and the cut off point for reasonable rates is at the end of April," Morelli concluded.

"As far as the weather goes, here's a big difference between now and six weeks from now," I agreed. "But didn't you say you had to use up the extra time before April began?"

"It would be more like three weeks from now. I spoke with my boss, and he agreed that it couldn't cause havoc if I took the trip early next month instead of this month. He _did_ say that I'd need to take another day off, because of how paid time off accrues. I was initially thinking that I'd work a half day on Friday, and we'd get there around 3 or 4. Then, we could spend the weekend and Monday, and leave on Tuesday morning. I wouldn't work on that day, but we couldn't check out on Wednesday and be able to get back in time to put in a full day at work."

I took a minute to process this. Unlike Morelli, I'd probably take off the whole day on the Friday that we left. Maybe use the morning to pack or something. If Morelli was going to take off all of Wednesday, I'd do the same, since it was rare that we got to spend a whole day together without either of our jobs interfering. Maybe we'd take one last walk on the boardwalk on Wednesday after we checked out of the hotel.

"Okay, so what's the plan, now?" I asked, nestling closer to him.

Morelli wrapped an arm around me. "We'll leave on the Friday three weeks from today. I'll work until 12, then head home. We can have lunch here or stop for fast food on the way. We'll probably arrive around 2 or 3, and be able to check in immediately. We'll spend the weekend, plus Monday and Tuesday. On early Wednesday—but not super early—we'll head back. I figure we'll be home around 1, which gives us the rest of the day together."

Five days of freedom. Four and a half of which would take place near the beach. It sounded perfect.

If I worked my butt off for the next few weeks, I could probably do this without wreaking havoc and getting fired—or threatened with getting fired—by Vinnie.

I nodded slowly. "You mentioned looking at places we could stay…"

"Right. I found eight places with good rates. Six of them are on the boardwalk. The other two are just a block away from it. Those two are slightly cheaper, but everything's pretty inexpensive right now. Do you want to take a look at them?"

"Yeah, sure."

Morelli crawled out of bed to retrieve his laptop. We visited several websites, but by the end, I could no longer keep track of what was what. Once you've seen three beachfront suites with adjoining bathrooms and living areas, you've seen them all. Morelli didn't seem to remember much more than I did.

"Which was the one with the canopy bed?" I asked.

"Hmm…" Morelli navigated through several websites before finding it. "It's this one, but it says that the rooms may not look like the pictures."

"That would be too easy. They want to confuse us," I complained.

"Yeah, pretty much." Morelli gave me a kiss on the top of my head. "Any other strong preferences?"

"No twin beds," I requested. "I'd feel like we were visiting the set of _I Love Lucy_."

"Definitely no twin beds," Morelli agreed. "Do we need a king sized one?"

I considered this. At my apartment, my bed was either a full sized or a queen, and I always had plenty of space. But Morelli had a king sized one, and after being there for the past week, I was getting used to the extra room.

"It would be nice," I stated. Then shrugged. "I don't want to spend a week on this, though. Queen's okay, too."

"Yeah, we have plenty of room when you use your apartment," Morelli grinned. "Anything else?"

I chewed on my lip as I thought. In the peak beach season, it might be better to stay in a hotel away from the boardwalk, due to the noise. I couldn't see this being a problem in early April. The boardwalk wouldn't be deserted during the day, but most of the people who visited the shore in the spring tended to be the day trip visitors. The really heavy crowding took place during the height of summer.

"I know we won't be swimming, but it would be nice to be able to see the beach. Let's forget about the two _not_ on the boardwalk. Otherwise…" I held up my hands to demonstrate my lack of opinion.

"How about I take a couple of days to go over the websites, and then show you the final three?"

Final two would be easier, but I could deal with the final three.

"Sounds good." Feigning sleepiness, I rolled over on the bed. "'Night, Joe."

I heard Morelli sigh, clearly crestfallen. "Okay, Steph. Sweet dreams."

He gave me another peck on my head, and I started to giggle.

"What?" he asked.

"I was teasing you."

A mischievous grin spread along Morelli's face. "Oh, yeah?"

"Mmm hmm."

He reached over to hug me, and I let him. I was pretty proud of myself. Maybe it was immature, but Morelli prided himself on his being able to read people and detect when they weren't telling the truth. He claimed it was what made him a good cop. The fact that my ruse had gone right over his head gave me a feeling of satisfaction, even smugness.

Probably, I should have recognized the meaning behind the grin.

If I had, I would have realized that a tickle attack would inevitably follow, and gotten out of the bed, _fast_.

A/N: If you enjoyed this chapter, please take a moment to leave a constructive review. Thanks!


	13. Making Plans

I actually wasn't ticklish, but I guess Morelli had never noticed this before. He headed for under my arms, and even though I let out a noise indicating surprise—it wasn't a scream by any stretch—it wasn't because I was anticipating a laughing attack. It took him a few seconds to realize that his fingers poking the area under my arms was, though not exactly comfortable, also not sending me into peels of laughter.

"Hmm," he said smiling wickedly. "I see you're not ticklish there."

I rolled my eyes at Morelli. "Nope."

"How about under the neck?" he asked, and his fingers were under my neck practically before he'd finished the sentence.

_This_ was a little more uncomfortable, but not laughter provoking. I swatted at Morelli's hands, and he removed them from my neck.

"Quit it," I complained. "I'm sick."

For emphasis, I let out a cough. It was pretty fake, and we both knew it.

"Uh huh…"

He glanced at the blankets covering my body. I smiled flirtatiously at Morelli.

"They're not coming off, and besides, I'm not ticklish."

He sighed heavily. "Nowhere?"

To be honest, under the right conditions I could be slightly ticklish around my ankles, but Morelli had given me plenty of foot rubs without provoking that reaction. Then again, maybe I could get a foot rub out of this if I pretended to be _extremely_ ticklish around my feet.

"On occasion, around my feet," I admitted, wiggling my toes under the covers.

Morelli raised his eyebrows. "Really?"

"Yeah, but…hey, why am I telling you this?" I demanded. "You're the enemy!"

"Me, the enemy?" Morelli repeated.

"Yeah, when you try to tickle me within an inch of my life!" I retorted, leaning over him.

He pulled me towards him. "Not an inch, Cupcake. Maybe two inches."

"Uh huh."

An idea struck me. "Are _you_ ticklish, Morelli?"

He held me tighter against his chest, but I suspected that this had more to do with trying to prevent me from finding any ticklish points than affection.

Well, maybe fifty-fifty.

"'Course not, Cupcake."

The answer was too quick, to…determined. I took a minute to consider this, and then stretched my arms around his chest until they reached the area under his arms. Before he knew what I was doing, I attacked.

You would have thought he'd been shot, Morelli's reaction was so sudden. He practically convulsed, giggling—yes, _giggling_—the entire time. Now that I was no longer wrapped up in a death grip of a hug, I took advantage of the situation to lean over Morelli and continue the tickle attack. I guessed that it was more like tickle torture at this point.

"Stop!" he gasped after about thirty seconds of this. "I…can't…breathe!"

I continued to move my fingers under Morelli's arms for a few seconds before letting go. I had to say, I felt kind of bad for him when I saw him trying to get his breath back. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, and there was sweat all over his face. I kept leaning over Morelli for a minute, making it known that his future was in my hands.

"This is just the beginning," I warned him. "Are you ticklish under your neck?"

He squirmed away, still not totally breathing normally. "No way, Cupcake," he begged. "I'm half dead as it is."

"Hmm."

I filed the information away for future reference (okay, blackmail), and crawled off of Morelli's chest.

"Can we at least have sex after this torture attack?" he asked me, tucking a loose piece of hair away from my face.

I sighed heavily, as though this would be a tremendous sacrifice. To be honest, I was feeling pretty tired by now, but I guessed that it was nothing compared to how Morelli was feeling.

Morelli gave me his famous puppy dog eyes, and I decided not to lengthen his misery.

"All right," I agreed, before giving him a long kiss.

Morelli returned the kiss, and a half an hour later, I fell asleep with his arms wrapped around me, feeling _very_ content.

A few days later, we were due to have dinner at my parents' house. Morelli had started joining me at the dinners after we'd officially become a couple, but I thought this had more to do with my mother's pressure than the home cooked food. Not that my mom wasn't a great cook, but family dinners can be long and trying occasions even under the best of circumstances. I _earned_ every bite of dessert I got from a dinner with my family.

Fortunately, dinners were always followed by desserts, and this included dessert with Morelli as well as the kind prepared by my mom.

Given that Morelli and I were going to tell my family about our planned trip to Point Pleasant at this dinner, I put on a blue skirt that _almost_ covered my knees, figuring it couldn't hurt to look somewhat respectable. Since it was kind of chilly outside, I wore a red sweater that enhanced my bra size. My appetite had still been smaller than usual since getting better, and even though I figured I'd gained back a couple of the pounds I'd lost, my breasts were still smaller than usual. Given that they're small even in the best of circumstances, this was pretty depressing.

Morelli eyed me appreciatively, taking an extra moment to smile at my chest. "Very pretty," he approved.

That made me feel a little better about my beast size, and I smiled at him.

He'd decided to wear the same clothes he'd been wearing all day, which consisted of jeans, a white t-shirt, and a dark, long sleeved, plaid flannel shirt over the t-shirt. It was one of my favorites, partly because it brought out Morelli's eyes, but also because it was really soft and made a nice pillow when I rested my head against his shoulders. Sometimes, if we were watching TV and I felt cold, he'd unbutton the flannel shirt and wrap it partly around me.

"Know what we're having tonight?" Morelli asked me on the drive over.

I frowned as I tried to recall the menu my mom had mentioned earlier. "She mentioned pot roast over the phone. Possibly mashed potatoes. Apple pie for dessert."

"Mmm. I love your mom's apple pie."

"You love anything you don't have to cook," I pointed out.

"True," he laughed. "I'm not picky."

We hit a series of traffic lights, so we spent the next five or so minutes quiet as Morelli tried to beat the 6PM deadline. If we were so much as a minute late, my mother would declare dinner to be ruined. I'd gotten out of going to dinner last week because I'd been recovering from food poisoning and could barely walk ten feet without feeling like I was about to faint. This week, I had no excuse.

Problem was, this would be the first time my parents and grandmother would see Joe Morelli since they found out about our engagement. I was certain that they'd ask us questions about when we were getting married, which priest we wanted to perform the ceremony, what dishes should we request at the wedding reception, who was going to be my bridesmaid, did I want just one flower girl this time, was I already pregnant, and what kind of cake did I want at the reception.

Okay, so the last one wasn't so bad. It was the others that gave me a headache.

To be totally honest, I wasn't sure if I even _wanted_ to get married. Morelli and I had told his mother and grandmother that we were getting married (well, _he_ told them, but it was in front of me, so it sort of counted) because they were tired of seeing us "live in sin". I guessed that in their eyes, sex before marriage wasn't quite as bad if you were engaged. Or maybe they hoped that we'd decide to wait until after marriage, and speed up the wedding process.

I knew that I'd feel uneasy about marriage regardless of who I was marrying. I couldn't see myself marrying anyone except Morelli, but that didn't mean I was all that excited for this to happen. It wasn't that I didn't love Morelli—I did. Okay, so I'd never actually said those words, but I felt them. He'd told me that he loved me on various occasions. At first, it had been a little awkward when I didn't say it back, but he didn't pressure me about it. I guessed that he figured I'd say it when I was ready.

Besides, a small thing like that shouldn't prevent us from getting married, should it? I'd say it once we were married, probably.

Anyway, it wasn't like either of us wanted the wedding to occur anytime soon.

I decided I'd better warn Morelli about the upcoming questions before we entered my parents' house.

I didn't have a lot of time to think of the right wording, since he was already pulling into their driveway, so I just said it.

"They're going to want to know about our wedding plans. Soon, if not tonight."

Morelli laughed. "I figured. I was going to say that we would talk about it on the trip. That way, we can get both out of the way at once. I'm assuming you'll want them to look after Rex while we're gone?"

"Yeah, but we'll need to find someone else to take care of Bob."

"How about Eddie? He has boys, and they'd probably love it. If he says no, I'll ask one of the guys at the precinct," Morelli suggested as he parked the car and turned it off.

"Sure, as long as it's someone you trust, and won't get annoyed if Bob accidentally eats some of their furniture," I warned.

He laughed. "I figure we'll have to bribe whoever takes care of Bob with a ton of fudge and saltwater taffy. You ready?"

I nodded, and we headed into the house.

My mom practically crushed my ribs with her hug. "I was so worried, Stephanie! How are you feeling? You still look pale." She put a hand over my forehead. "You feel warm. Mother, what do you think? Should Stephanie stay over tonight?"

I was still recovering from the rib crushing hug, attempting to get enough air in my lungs to think straight.

"I think _Stephanie_ has other plans for tonight," Morelli whispered in my ear.

I swallowed a giggle.

Sheesh, all this before we were even in the door.

My mom pulled me inside and closed the door behind me, as though afraid that I'd try to escape.

"We were so worried about you! When Joseph called and told us you had food poisoning—"

"Mom, I'm fine now." I began to unbutton my jean jacket. "Joe took great care of me."

My mom eyed Morelli skeptically, then shot her gaze to me. "Well, at least you're with family, and I can give you a nice home cooked meal, and you can relax with your father this evening. There's some sort of a game on, and he hoped that you two would stay and watch it with him."

I sent Morelli a sideways look. He raised his eyebrows slightly—code for, "Well, it's not sex, but it's the next best thing, and your parents seem pretty insistent."

"You two think about it," Grandma offered, giving me a knowing smile and taking my jacket. "Let's start eating before the food gets cold."

"Frank!" My mom called as she headed into the family room. "We're ready for dinner."

My dad appeared in the kitchen a few seconds later, and gave me the once over.

"Your mother said you were pretty sick," he told me. "You okay now, sweetheart?"

I nodded, and he gave me a quick, gruff hug. "Missed you last week," he muttered into my ear. "That damned dingbat grandmother of yours wouldn't shut up about aliens and Stonehenge. Nearly had a stroke trying not to throttle her."

I doubted that my being there would have done much to discourage Grandma, but I gave my dad a sympathetic smile, muttering something noncommittal about being sorry he had to endure that, and he put a reassuring arm on my shoulder.

"Just glad you're back, sweetie. Let's eat."

From my father, a man of few words, this was practically a declaration that he was afraid I'd been dying, that he loved me, and another rib crushing hug.

I'd been mostly right about the menu. My mom had served pot roast, and she gave me an extra large helping. There were also mashed potatoes, drenched in gravy, peas, green beans, and carrots. This was pretty vegetable heavy for what we usually ate, but my mom explained that there'd been a sale at the market with green beans and carrots. My dad dutifully ignored both.

"You're looking so skinny!" she told me. "You've always been too thin, but I haven't seen you this skinny since high school."

It probably wasn't much of an exaggeration. I didn't get sick often, but when I did, I tended to lose a lot of weight because I couldn't keep much down. I figured I still was eight, if not nine, pounds below my normal weight of 125 pounds. I sometimes inched up to 130, but if I went over that, I knew I had to "starve" myself for a day or two, or even three if it got really bad. This meant only one donut instead of my usual six.

I wouldn't have this problem for awhile.

I hoped.

"Steph's had a rough week," Morelli offered, putting an arm around my shoulder. "Fortunately, she's doing a lot better and even went back to work a few days ago."

Knowing what was coming next, I sent Morelli a glare. He looked genuinely bewildered, and I shot my gaze to my mom, who was starting to say how I should just quit my job now that I was engaged.

I tuned out most of the conversation, letting Morelli field the questions about our impending wedding and setting a date. He basically told them what he told me in the car—we'd discuss everything on our trip. This was a perfect segue into the conversation about Morelli and I going to Point Pleasant in two weeks, and would they mind taking care of Rex while we were gone?

"As long as you don't expect us to deal with that damn dog," my father stated through a large mouthful of pot roast.

"Yes, Rex is no problem," my mom affirmed. "But won't it be too cold to enjoy the beach?"

"They're not going for the beach," Grandma Mazur said, grinning at us. "They're going for the hot sex."

"Mother!" My mom looked genuinely shocked, and Grandma just laughed.

"We're going now because I have some unused vacation days I have to use up by the end of the month," Morelli explained. "It will probably be too cold to swim, but I figure that Steph and I can still enjoy talking walks on the beach, and the boardwalk should be open. We're still deciding on hotels."

That had been something we were going to decide on tonight. As promised, Morelli had narrowed it down to three places, all on the boardwalk with queen or king sized beds, and all within a reasonable price range. Although, as he kept reminding me, practically anything this time of year was reasonable.

My mom seemed doubtful about this. "Stephanie, make sure you bring a jacket and at least two warm sweaters," she told me. "It's awfully windy this time of year."

I nodded, biting back a remark that I was thirty and old enough to dress myself. Part of it was a desire to avoid conflict, but I was also relieved that she'd limited her advice to jackets and sweaters, and didn't tell me to bring long underwear.

Not that I owned any, but that was beside the point.

Morelli kept a comforting hand on my leg, which helped me to keep my temper in check.

He leaned over and whispered in my ear something about plans he had for after the game tonight, and I blushed. Fortunately, Grandma was the only one to notice, and she just winked at me encouragingly.

Not only did my mom bake an extra large apple pie for dessert—one of her only desserts that could rival her pineapple upside down cake—but she'd also baked large chocolate chip cookies earlier that afternoon. My mouth watered when I saw them.

"I had some extra time on my hands," she explained as she brought out enough cookies to feed a family of ten. "There's more in the kitchen if you want more."

"Watch out, she's trying to fatten you up like the witch in Hansel and Gretel," Morelli told me in a low voice. "Try to avoid getting anywhere near the oven."

I snickered and nearly choked on a cookie. He patted me on the back, which was unnecessary since I just needed a few sips of water to get the cookie down the right tube.

We stayed an extra half an hour for the beginning of the game, but Morelli obviously couldn't wait anymore, and faked a call from dispatch. My parents seemed disappointed to see us go, but you couldn't argue with work. Mom sent us on our way with half of the apple pie, at least seven helpings of pot roast and mashed potatoes, and a huge bag filled with chocolate chip cookies.

"You need the nourishment," she explained as I gave her a disbelieving glance. Leftovers were a Plum family tradition, but this would last at least a few days. "Oh, and Stephanie?"

"Yeah?"

"If you remember, please try to bring back some of those jelly donuts and cinnamon buns from the bakery at Point Pleasant. I don't remember the name, but it starts with a K."

I knew which one she meant. "Can you remind me when we drop Rex off?" I asked, knowing I'd forget.

Also, knowing that she'd want more than jelly donuts and cinnamon buns by the time the trip came around.

"Sure thing, sweetie. See you both next week!"

A few more hugs and warnings to be careful of my health, and we were out of there. I felt my heart beat return to normal. Morelli kept a protective arm around me as we headed to his car.

"Your parents are sweet," he told me as we took off.

"Insane," I corrected.

"Yeah, but nice." He grinned at me. "If that's how they're like before we've talked about the wedding, imagine what they'll be like after the trip."

I let out a long sigh. "Don't remind me."

"Did you notice your mother kept looking at your ring finger?"

I had. "You don't need to rush," I told him. "We'll figure things out at Point Pleasant. Right now, I'm too mentally exhausted to think about it much."

Morelli took his eyes off the road for a minute to give me a concerned look. "We're still on for sex, right?"

I rolled my eyes at him. "Of course."

"What about the hotel rooms?"

"Let's do that first. We'll save sex as the reward."

"We could do it twice," Morelli offered, as though he were trying to bribe me with chocolate.

"After sex, I'll be too much of a pile of mush to think about hotel rooms," I reminded him. "Unless you want to wait until tomorrow…"

"Deposit's due tomorrow," he replied. "We don't _need_ one…we can wait until we get there, but then we're not assured of anything." He sighed. "Guess we'll have to do the hotel stuff first."

Ten minutes later, we'd arrived at Morelli's house. As he waited for the computer to load up, I took the leftovers into the kitchen and placed them in his refrigerator. Except for the cookies, which we'd munch on while we studied the hotel rooms. Bag of cookies in hand, I joined him on the couch in his living room while he showed me the places he'd narrowed the search down to. They mostly looked the same—large bedroom, slightly smaller living room, and a bathroom. Two places had a combined bath/shower, but the third place just had a shower. We eliminated that one right off, and examined the final two carefully.

"This one has a better cable package," Morelli pointed out, taking a cookie from the bag and swallowing half of it in one bite. "Also, there's a balcony."

It was also two more blocks away from the stores of Point Pleasant, which could be annoying when we walked there, but nice as far as getting to sleep without the noise. Not that we expected there to be a whole lot of that in early April, but you never knew.

The other place didn't have a balcony, and was located on the fourth floor instead of the third floor. It had basic cable, but if you wanted to watch a movie, you'd have to pay at least ten dollars for it. It had a mini bar stocked with snacks and alcohol, but that kind of thing usually cost an arm and a leg, and the stuff was half stale because the hotel staff didn't bother to replace it unless someone had eaten the stuff from there.

"There's room service offered at the first place," I told Morelli. "Don't see anything at the second place…"

Morelli switched windows on the computer and squinted at the screen. "Don't see anything about room service. Probably, they don't have it this time of year."

The first place was a little more expensive—fifty extra dollars a night—but Morelli thought that prices could be negotiated when there were more empty rooms than filled ones. Neither place was particularly costly, but neither was exactly cheap.

"So, the first one?" I asked.

Morelli nodded. "I'll give them a call tomorrow and ask about discounts. They might be able to give us a free night since we're staying for several days."

That decided, Morelli shut off his laptop and left it on his desk.

"Ready for the fun part of the evening?" he asked me, his eyes growing soft.

Was I ever.

A/N: If you enjoyed this chapter, please take a moment to leave a constructive review!


	14. To the beach!

I woke up the day of our trip feeling almost giddy with excitement. This was the first time Morelli and I were going to take a trip together that didn't have anything to do with work. We'd been together officially for several months, with the night in my little black dress marking the date we first became a couple, but his work or mine always kept us busy. Our time together seemed to be spent in spurts, with us seeing each other every day for a week and then not being able to connect for two. It was just one of the things I disliked about Morelli being a cop. Now, though, we'd have a long weekend of just us time, _plus_ spend it at one of my favorite places in New Jersey. I tried to visit Point Pleasant at least once a year by myself or with friends, but I knew it would be a completely different experience with Morelli.

Even though we were pretty much in vacation mode last night, I remembered that excitement had it hard for me to fall asleep. Fortunately, Morelli was always happy to make me very happy and relaxed, and the night before, we had done it three times. Two was the norm for us.

I smiled to myself as I recalled the events of the previous evening. Right after dinner, we'd taken Bob to Eddie Gazarra's, along with a two week supply of dog food that _might_ last him until we got back. Eddie hadn't been thrilled to babysit Bob while we were gone, but we'd promised him lots of goodies from the Point Pleasant boardwalk.

"Make sure you bring back some fudge," he'd told us, eying Bob with an air of distrust. "I'll need it for when Bob tears the house apart."

"He _won't _tear the house apart," I had insisted, petting Bob reassuringly on the head. "You have three wild boys...they'll give him plenty of exercise. He'll be worn out by the time we get back."

"What about shots? I don't want my kids getting some disease because he bit them," Shirley the Whiner had asked us, eyeing Bob as he settled down on the carpet and began to snore.

"He's all caught up with his vaccines," Morelli had confirmed, stroking Bob's head affectionately. "He's a great dog, Eddie, Shirley. We'd bring him with us if the hotel allowed pets. We appreciate you taking care of him while we're gone."

The last part had been a subtle reminder from Morelli about Burg hospitality. Okay, technically our unofficial rules stated that a Burg housewife had to be ready with lots of homemade food for _any_ guest at any hour of the day or night. Still, I could see it applying to being prepared to care of insane pets while the owners went out of town.

All three of us knew that this was, at the very least, an exaggeration. As much as Morelli

and I loved Bob, taking care of him when we were supposed to be taking time off would kind of put a damper on the whole experience. I'd rather have Bob with me than Eddie or Shirley's boys—or even Mary Lou's kids—but pets were part of the family, and sometimes they did things that drove you insane. I mean, Bob still ate clothing and furniture, and I _really_ didn't want to imagine the kind of damage he could do to a really nice hotel room. Even if we locked him in the bathroom, he'd probably eat all of our toothpaste and throw toilet paper all over the place.

It wasn't that I wouldn't miss him, but I really wanted Morelli and me to have some one on one time without having to worry about feeding Bob, or cleaning up his poop, or wondering about whether that mass of vomit contained my new bra. Besides, he'd have a better time being around human kids who could act just as wild and crazy as him.

Rex was another story entirely. If you want a low maintenance pet that you can interact with outside of a bowl of water, hamsters are the way to go. Despite the hotel's "NO PETS" policy, we probably could have gotten around it by showing them Rex and offering them an extra hundred dollars or so. Yeah, I _would_ miss Rex when we were away. But if Bob had to stay behind, then so did Rex.

Besides, my parents had taken care of him before, and he always emerged from their house alive, happy, and well fed. If anything, he was probably spoiled rotten with bits of my mom's desserts. The last time I went away, he wouldn't touch the grape I gave him as a welcome home present. I guessed that once you had my mom's apple pie, grapes were as unappetizing as hamster pellets.

We said our goodbyes and Eddie and Shirley wished us a good trip, looking like they wished they were in our shoes and we were in theirs. It occurred to me that we _might_ be in their shoes sooner than we realized. If Morelli and I got married soon, we'd probably end up with kids sooner rather than later. The kids would probably be crazy, wild little boys…but look too cute to stay mad at for long.

Leaving behind two beloved pets made me a little depressed on the walk home. I hadn't been regretting the decision to go on a long weekend trip to Point Pleasant, but I was starting to miss Rex already. Even Bob. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad smuggling him along…

"I know what you're thinking," Morelli'd told me as we headed home, arm around my shoulder. "You're missing them."

"Yeah," I sighed.

Morelli pulled me into a long hug, not something he usually did in public. "Let me give you a preview tonight of what we're going to be doing on our trip."

Still tired but happy, I was grinning when I woke up after Morelli's alarm had been blazing for ten minutes. He left it on a little longer than necessary, which was probably so we could have a repeat of the previous night's activities.

I was only too happy to comply, but I pointed out that if this was what he was like _before_ we left, I wondered what he had in mind when we arrived at the hotel. Not to mention if I'd be able to survive several days of it. Morelli winked, gave me a huge grin, and pulled me into a long hug when I voiced this concern.

"We'll see the outside of the hotel at least twice, aside from checking in and checking out," he teased.

I settled back under the covers, the familiar warm and relaxing feeling having once again taken its hold, and he gave me a kiss on the forehead.

"You all packed?" Morelli asked me as he started to get dressed.

"Actually haven't started," I admitted. Not that this would be news for him. I _hated _packing and put it off for as long as possible. "I figured I'd throw some stuff together while you were at work. What time did you want to leave?"

Morelli paused in the middle of putting on a shirt so that one sleeve was covering his arm and the other was hanging in the air.

"I should easily be back by noon," he promised, "so let's try for 1:00. I can't imagine we'd get a whole lot of traffic in April, and it's less than an hour away."

I rolled over on my side. "When can we check in?"

"2, I think. Maybe 2:30." He frowned. "I'll check before we leave. Want to stop for fast food on the way there?"

"Yeah, that sounds good," I replied. "I'll be packed by the time you get back."

Another kiss on the forehead. "Make sure you bring that sexy black dress," he advised.

I rolled my eyes at Morelli. "Maybe. See you later."

He gave me a peck on the forehead and pulled the covers over my shoulders. "Sweet dreams. See you soon."

I slept for another two hours, waking up just after 8:30. Connie and Vinnie knew that I'd be going away for a few days, and since I'd brought the last skip of the massive pile into the police station the previous evening, all I had to do was stop in and collect my check. It would be nice to have some spending money in Point Pleasant, after Morelli and I divided up the costs of the treats we were supposed to bring back for everyone we knew.

Morelli and I had just managed to finalize the list before bed that night. It had been a long one. We'd gotten bombarded with requests the last few days before we left, and even though Morelli wanted to wing it, I knew that we'd receive no end of complaints if we didn't put everything together in one list.

This is what the final compilation looked like:

Grandma Bella: Two dozen cinnamon rolls, a dozen jelly donuts

Joe's mother: a one pound box of salt water taffy, a half a pound box of chocolate and strawberry fudge

Eddie Gazarra: LOTS of sweets. All varieties. Must include at least two pounds of chocolate fudge.

my mother: two dozen cinnamon rolls, six jelly donuts, and a pound of fudge

Grandma Mazur: two pounds of salt water taffy, one pound of fudge, a dozen cinnamon rolls

Mary Lou: assorted donuts, and a variety of candies (allegedly for her kids, but I knew that she and her husband would sneak a few)

Joe's cop coworkers/buddies: four dozen donuts of assorted flavors, five pounds of a combination of saltwater taffy and fudge.

Connie, Vinnie, and Lula: at least a three pound combination of fudge and saltwater taffy. A dozen assorted donuts.

Clearly, at least half of whatever we'd saved by visiting the shore during the "off season", we'd be spending on sweets for our family, friends, and coworkers.

And ourselves, of course. Because you can't buy fifty pounds of sweets without including a few for yourselves. Besides, we'd look like we were the world's biggest junk foodaholics—if that wasn't an actual word, then it should be—no matter what.

Most of the candy could be purchased at any point during the trip and stored in our hotel room. The baked goods, like the cinnamon rolls and the donuts, had to be purchased on the last day. After we'd finished making the list, Morelli had suggested that we contact the store with the baked goods (at least we could get everything from one place) and place an order on the first or second day. Nothing like visiting the bakery on the last day only to find out that they were fresh out of jelly donuts or cinnamon rolls.

No sooner had I added the final item to the list than Morelli grabbed it out of my hands and began attacking me with kisses.

"I'm really hungry for something else," he'd said, in between kisses.

"Me too," I'd murmured, kissing him back before the other activities began.

Now awake, I got dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, drank two cups of coffee and ate a bowl of frosted flakes. I decided to visit the office before packing, so I could use the excuse of packing to escape if things went on for too long. Vinnie was still extremely ticked off that I would be gone for, in his words, "practically a fucking week" after having the nerve to be sick just a few weeks earlier. Sure, I'd brought every one of his skips in before I left, and Lula was kind of capable while I was gone, and there was always Ranger for the really high bonds, but you'd think that I was taking a month off by the way Vinnie acted.

Personally, I thought it was just a show, a way to prevent me from having a good time with Morelli.

Probably, he was jealous that he couldn't do the same thing with his wife. His wife was in charge of all of the trips, and she never chose something as basic (his words) as visiting the shore. Since Vinnie was a horrible husband in practically every way that mattered, he let his wife pick where they went on vacation. Not enough to compensate for his illicit activities, but I guessed that it was better than nothing.

As it turned out, Lula wasn't in the office yet, and Connie was facing another filing crisis, so before picking up my checks, I spent a good half an hour helping her file. Lula _still_ wasn't there by the time I left. She'd probably be ticked that I hadn't waited for her, but the looks and snide comments Vinnie kept throwing my way weren't doing a lot to make me stay.

"Have fun," Connie told me as we said our goodbyes. "Have a great time with your hot cop, and don't forget to bring us back some reminders of the shore."

"It's the _least_ you can do," Vinnie added.

"Vinnie, if you don't behave yourself, she'll bring back a seagull," I heard Connie say as I walked out.

More likely, a duck.

Before heading home, I stopped at the bank to cash the checks, knowing there wasn't much of a chance of seeing the money go into my pretty skimpy looking bank account.

Still, it was more cash than I'd seen in awhile, and I felt pretty proud of myself.

Once I'd returned to Morelli's, I tackled the process of packing. He'd brought most of my stuff there when I'd gotten sick, even things that I thought I wouldn't be wearing anytime soon. Like the aforementioned black dress. It had turned out to be a good idea, because now I didn't have to run back to my apartment in search of extra items of clothing.

I didn't really _want_ to pack, so I decided to put it off by making sure that Morelli had packed everything he needed. I went through the items in his bag and noticed that he'd included a pair of swim trunks. Hmm. Maybe I should bring my bathing suit. He'd only brought two pairs of socks, so I threw in some extra ones. He'd remembered a toothbrush, but forgotten toothpaste. I found an unopened tube from the bathroom and added that as well. Once that was done, I couldn't find anything else that he'd missed, and decided to get started with my stuff.

I packed a few nice outfits, a bathing suit in case it was unnaturally warm, several pairs of jeans and shirts, several bras, more than enough underwear and socks to last the entire trip, and several variations of pajamas/nightgowns depending on how warm the weather got. I included one flannel nightgown with the variation of sexier nightclothes. Maybe it was silly, you'd think that late April would be too late for a flannel nightgown, but cold evenings tended to arrive when you least expected it. Besides, chances were, whatever I put on to go to sleep in wouldn't stay on for very long.

Next, I threw in some basic toiletries and then did a cursory inspection of the guest bedroom which contained most of my stuff. I didn't see much that I'd miss over the next several days. We didn't need blankets or sheets-hotels always provided that stuff. Food?

Well, I could always use peanut butter, so I decided to add an unopened jar of that to my supplies. I searched my suitcase again. I had a hairbrush, toothpaste, a toothbrush, dental floss (in case I felt like starting), soap, shampoo, conditioner, hair gel, makeup, and my hair dryer. The last one they'd probably provide as well, but it couldn't hurt to bring it along. Everything looked good.

I had just finished throwing everything into a large duffle bag when I heard the front door open.

"Steph?" he called.

"I'm in the bedroom," I yelled back. "Just finished packing."

Morelli approached me from behind and pulled me into a long hug. I squeezed him back, turning to see him better. He kissed the top of my head, which led to more kisses on the lips. More stuff occurred, and a few minutes after we'd both gotten our breath back, Morelli was cuddling me close to him. "We're going to have a great time," he told me.

Yeah, I thought as I relaxed into his arms. We sure were.

Traffic was a little heavier than we had expected, but we still stopped for lunch at a McDonalds and ate in the parking lot.

"Ohh, look! I got a mutant French fry," I told Morelli, showing him the absurdly long, almost wavy French fry. "It's a giant."

Morelli reached out with a hand. "Can I see it?"

I handed it over, and he popped it into his mouth. "Hey!" I exclaimed, laughing. "You killed it!"

"Still tastes good," Morelli said as he chewed. "I'm 99% certain it was safe to eat."

"I can't believe that you _killed_ the world's longest French fry," I complained.

Morelli took a swig of soda. "Not the world's longest. Maybe the state's longest, though."

I carefully guarded the rest of my fries from Morelli's greedy fingers, and managed to steal a few of his when I thought he wasn't looking.

"You owe me in kisses," Morelli told me. "You took ten fries, so that's fifteen kisses."

Never mind the fact that he'd stolen my fry in the first place.

"Wait, how does that work? A kiss and a half for each one?"

Morelli shook his head and began to gather up our trash to throw away. "A kiss for the first five. Then two kisses for the next ten."

Hmm. "What if I'd taken all of them?"

He grinned and traced the line of my jaw. "You don't want to know."

"Okay, do I have to pay now, or can I pay later?" I asked.

Another smile. "Payment's due by midnight, or there's a late charge."

After we'd thrown out the garbage, we set off on the highway again. There was more traffic now, and I wasn't sure if all of these people were taking advantage of the nice weather to spend a weekend at the shore, or if this was how many people commuted on a regular basis. I was now feeling that after lunch tiredness feeling, and I figured I'd just shut my eyes for a bit, but when I opened them next, we had arrived at the hotel.

Morelli turned in his seat and smiled at me. "I'm glad you're awake. I wasn't looking forward to having to wake you up," he said. "Feel okay?"

I nodded, still feeling somewhat groggy from my nap. Morelli brushed a piece of hair out of my face, and we just smiled at each other for a minute. Then, we got out of the car, and the fresh salt air seemed to revive me immediately. Morelli took both of our suitcases, claiming that his was a lot heavier than mine, and we headed into the hotel to check in.

Despite the traffic, we were fifteen minutes too early to check in, so we waited around in the lobby.

My stomach started complaining, which was annoying, but I tried to take it as a good sign. I'd been able to eat normal amounts of food after getting over the food poisoning, but my larger than average appetite seemed to have disappeared after the night of the dented soup can.

If Lula and I stopped for donuts, I ate two rather than my usual six. If we got fast food, she'd finish at least half of my fries. The leftovers from my parents seemed to last longer, too. As a result, when I last weighed myself, I was six pounds below my "normal" weight. I was convinced that most of that weight was lost in useless places no one cared about, or worse, places you didn't want to lose. In my case, breasts, feet, and lower legs. I was certain that my ankles were skinnier than usual. Still, I never had to worry about buttoning my jeans.

So, the return of hunger just an hour after having eaten lunch was a good thing. Morelli heard my stomach rumbling, and grinned, patting it affectionately.

"We'll get you more food soon," he promised.

Fortunately, there was a vending machine in the lobby, so I fished a couple of dollars out of my jeans to get a couple of candy bars. I gave one to Morelli, finished the second before he'd eaten half of his, and decided to save the third one for later-probably a half an hour later.

An older looking woman who worked as the receptionist/secretary/whatever they called the people who worked at the front desk called out our names, and we were finally allowed to check into the hotel. I was starting to feel that familiar twinge of excitement. I'd seen pictures of the rooms, and they looked great, but those were just sample pictures, possibly taken years earlier, and not necessarily what ours would look like.

What I _did _know was that Morelli had asked for a small suite when he put in the deposit.

I'd also seen the check he wrote for the whole thing, and while it was more than I could have afforded to pay, it was still fairly cheap. We'd easily pay that amount of a tiny room at the same place, for a night's stay, in the height of the summer. Anyway, they told us that we'd be staying in a hotel complex with a large bedroom and a bathroom attached.

We'd have a slightly smaller living area, complete with a flat screen TV, a fridge, a large couch, and two chairs We'd been told that the chairs were extremely comfortable and often described as "overstuffed". A small kitchen, probably smaller than the one in my apartment, would be connected to the living room. Connected on the opposite side of the kitchen, both to the living area and the bedroom, was an outdoor balcony complete with "lawn furniture".

Of course, knowing this and seeing it firsthand are two entirely different matters. I wasn't too picky about staying at hotels—it was a luxury I could rarely afford on my income—but I hoped that it wouldn't be overly cutesy, with the bed shaped like a heart and heart pillows decorating every surface you could use for sitting or lying down.

Morelli had laughed when I told him my fear of the heart pillows, and said he was pretty sure they just did that in Vegas with honeymoon suites. That gave me different jitters, because I had a feeling we'd be booking one of those (except, probably not in Vegas) before too long. In fact, both of our families had expected us to spend a good portion of this trip discussing wedding plans. Setting a date, finding me a ring, picking out the cake, etc.

I wanted to put off that discussion for as long as possible.

The receptionist handed Morelli two sets of keys and we headed up to the fourth floor, where our suite was located. I noticed that this hotel was an older one, without an elevator. I'd sure get in a workout whenever I wanted to leave the building—a perfect excuse for either eating more junk food, or remaining a couch potato.

Morelli was still carrying my suitcase, and refused any offers of help. I wavered between amusement and annoyance. Well, if he fell down and broke both of his arms, he wouldn't be able to hold me responsible!

We made it to the hotel room without any injuries, and I took a moment to take everything in. It was easily the nicest place I'd ever stayed at in my entire life. Dickie and I had done the honeymoon thing, but most of the money had gone to paying for the wedding and traveling to the honeymoon location. I still refused to go back to the same city with Morelli, even though it's not like it was cursed.

Just about everything about our hotel suite was elegant, spacious, and very comfortable. The term "overstuffed" accurately described the chairs and the couch. Hell, if Morelli and I had a fight, I might insist on sleeping on the couch, because it looked more comfortable than any bed I'd seen. Except, when I sat down on the bed, it was like sitting in a cloud.

Yeah, we might not make it out of this hotel room very much after all…

I turned to Morelli, who was grinning, obviously very pleased with things. "You didn't sell your soul or anything to get this, right?"

He just laughed. "You saw what I paid." I had. Now that I saw the suite, I was convinced the hotel owners must have forgotten to add an extra 0 to the price. Then again, it wasn't like April was that popular for long visits in Point Pleasant. The lobby had had other visitors, but hadn't been packed by a long shot. "It's great, right?"

I rolled my eyes. "That's an understatement."

Morelli glanced at the bed again, and then at me. "I think we should test it out, just to make sure it's all right," he told me, eyes going chocolate brown, and holding me close to him. "What do you think, Cupcake?"

I thought that this was a very good idea.

A half an hour later, I was laying in Morelli's arms, the sheets and blankets pulled up over us. Even though we should probably start unpacking and figure out if we wanted to have an early dinner and then, maybe, head out to explore the boardwalk, neither of us wanted to do very much except lie there. Morelli had his arms wrapped around my stomach, just inches below my breasts. I leaned against his chest, inhaling his familiar scent.

I could hardly believe that it would just be the two of us for the next few days. No work to call him off in the middle of getting intimate, no bad guys to worry about. Just us, together. I turned and smiled at Morelli. He looked pretty content as well. No cop face with all of his features masked. Just Joe Morelli, features smooth, eyes molten chocolate, mouth smiling contentedly. He looked much younger this way, even though thirty-two is hardly old. Maybe ten years younger.

"Happy?" he asked, moving a hand away from my stomach to play with a loose curl.

"Mmm…very," I murmured, giving him a long kiss on the lips. "Ready for round two?"

His eyes became dark chocolate. "Always."

Afterwards, neither of us did much talking, just lay there in utter relaxation.

Before long, though, my stomach was beginning to growl _again_, and I knew that we'd have to deal with the practical stuff soon enough. Like eating and unpacking.

"We could order room service," Morelli suggested, running the hand which had been playing with my hair along my arm. "You always enjoy that."

I sighed, knowing this meant we'd have to search for menus.

As though guessing what my sigh meant, Morelli chuckled and gave me a kiss on the forehead. "Okay, how about this? You go ahead and unpack your stuff. I'll figure out the food situation. Anything in particular you want?"

I sat up on the bed and began to put on my t-shirt and jeans. No point in putting on a bra if we were going to stay in. I noticed Morelli grin at that. "Not really, as long as there's a good dessert."

I started getting the clothes out of my duffle bag, starting to feel more awake as I unpacked. I still felt really relaxed, but not ready to sleep for a few hours.

By the time I'd finished unpacking, Morelli had located the menu, which had been tucked in one of the drawers on the bedside table, right beneath the Gideon Bible people always placed in hotel rooms. I looked over his shoulder and scanned the options.

"The roasted chicken sounds good," I commented.

"I think I'll have the steak," he said, still eying the choices. He nodded at the drawer that had contained the menu. "There's a dessert menu in the drawer."

The options on the dessert menu all sounded great, and I decided to go for the blueberry pie which included a side of vanilla ice cream, and was topped with whipped cream. Morelli, after considerably less examination than I had put in, opted for a piece of chocolate cake with raspberry caramel sauce.

He phoned in our orders, and I helped him unpack. Morelli had mostly packed casual clothes, jeans and t-shirts, with the exception of a nice dress shirt and khaki pants in case we went out. We probably wouldn't eat anywhere that required a shirt and tie, but even if we did, Morelli could get away with dressing down.

Ten minutes after we'd taken care of the unpacking and putting away business, a knock on the door meant our food was there. Good thing, because I was starting to consider eating that second candy bar.

We settled into the couch with our food, facing each other. Morelli's eyes looked soft and familiar, his cop face gone for the time being. I figured we'd watch some TV while we ate, but Morelli wanted us to be focused on each other. We pretty much shared both of our meals with each other, taking turns feeding bits of food to the other person. He especially liked my side of mashed potatoes, and I enjoyed the fries that came with his steak.

If we hadn't been sharing food, it would have taken a ton of self discipline not to eat my pie first. When it came time to eat the desserts, I eyed Morelli's very large piece of cake greedily.

"I might be persuaded to share," he told me, smiling.

"Oh?" I asked, purposely batting my eyelashes at Morelli.

"You'd have to pay off your fifteen kisses debt in between bites," he informed me. "So I could get a taste of it."

This sounded pretty fair, and I'd read that kissing was a form of exercise. "Deal," I agreed.

"And I get to try some of your pie," he added, eyeing my plate with the same greed I must have shown looking at his cake.

I rolled my eyes. "Two bites."

"Four."

"Three."

Morelli sighed heavily. "And one bite of ice cream."

It was my turn to sigh. "All right."

About five minutes after eating my half of Morelli's cake plus my decent sized piece of pie topped with ice cream, I was feeling uncomfortably full.

"That was not a good idea," I told him, giving the plates that held the desserts a dirty look. "You should have eaten more of my pie."

Morelli put an arm around my shoulder tentatively. "Sorry, Cupcake…do you think you're going to throw up?"

I shook my head, and could almost hear Morelli sigh with relief as he gently pulled me into his arms and began to rub my back. _That_ helped considerably.

A half an hour later, I felt like myself again, and vaguely wondered what we were going to do all evening. It was barely 6:00, and it would stay light out until at least 7:30. In the summer, nighttime was one of the best times to visit the Point Pleasant boardwalk, but I imagined that the stores and vendors tended to close earlier in the spring and fall. Another reason Morelli had probably been able to get a good deal on our hotel suite. Still, we could always take a walk, if we got dressed (okay, if _I _got dressed) and maybe brought sweaters or sweatshirts. There didn't seem to be much on TV right now, and I didn't feel like reading more of the futuristic fiction Morelli had gotten me from the library.

"How about if we take a walk?" I suggested, still nestled in his arms.

Morelli seemed surprised at the suggestion. "If you want to…"

"I know there probably won't be much open, but I'd like to take a look around," I explained. "It's not like there's much on TV right now."

Not that the TV was on, but I was pretty familiar with the Friday lineup this time of year.

Most of our shows were in hiatus until the finales in a few weeks.

"We don't have to _watch_ TV," Morelli offered.

I rolled my eyes. "Cripes, Joe, we already had sex four times today. Don't you think we should wait until a little later before we do it _again_?"

He shrugged, not agreeing but not disagreeing. I could see a grin playing at his lips. "How about we take a short walk, and then see what kind of movies they have here?"

Sounded good to me. I got up from Morelli's lap and changed into jeans with a t-shirt and a long sleeved flannel shirt over it. Morelli grabbed a sweatshirt, and we headed out the door.

Morelli wasn't usually one for public displays of affection. Sure, he'd place an arm around my shoulder sometimes or give me a peck on the forehead, but we weren't the kind of couple that held hands or made out in public. We did that sort of thing in private, where people wouldn't see. So, when he draped an arm around my shoulder and left it there for awhile, I was a little surprised, but not unpleasantly so. It felt comfortable, if slightly out of character. In fact, I realized that I was becoming warm and tingly inside, and I leaned in closer to Morelli as we made our way to the boardwalk.

As I'd expected, most of the stores were closed for the day. Still, the fact that they were closed for the _day_, as opposed to until May or June, was reassuring. Many of the closed stores even had large clocks that showed the hour they'd be opening again. Many of the stores had 9-5 hours, and even the places that served my favorite ice cream and the French fries I loved would be open by the following afternoon. There might be reduced hours, but they were still there.

We passed a pet store I hadn't noticed before, specializing in small pets appropriate for beach homes. Goldfish, hermit crabs, that sort of thing. No hamsters, though.

Morelli peered into the store, while I would have walked by without giving it much more attention.

"The hermit crabs look pretty cool," he told me. "Any chance that Rex would like a brother or sister?"

I gave an involuntary shudder. I wasn't fond of pets with pointy edges as their most prominent feature.

"He'd probably ignore it," I said.

Not to mention, if I got one, I'd have to feed it, which meant risking the wrath of the crab's pinchers on a regular basis. No, thank you.

Morelli pretended to be a hermit crab. "Please, Stephanie, please adopt me," he said in a high pitched voice.

I attempted to ruffle his hair, but Morelli jumped out of my reach. "Hey!" I exclaimed indignantly. "Besides, hermit crabs do _not_ sound like that."

"Okay, Cupcake," Morelli retorted, "how _do_ they sound?"

Hmm. Good question. I did my best hermit crab imitation, which I thought was a lot better than Morelli's, despite not having much of a chance to practice one. It was slightly lower than Morelli's, and deliberately raspy, like how I imagined a witch would sound.

"I'm a horrible pet, Stephanie," I mimicked. "Please don't buy me! I'll pinch you and scare your hamster until he can't eat and gets sick."

Morelli put an arm around my shoulder. "Well, if _Rex_ doesn't want a brother or sister…"

"He doesn't," I agreed, speaking for both of us. I was sure that when we returned home,

Rex would be relieved that I didn't bring a tiny pinching monster that would stare at him until he permanently retreated into his soup can.

Or _any_ brothers and sisters, hamster or otherwise…

Morelli and I leisurely walked the length of the boardwalk—just a mile long, but we kept to a snaillike pace to take in the stores on one side and the ocean on the other—and then headed back to the suite.

"Wonder what the water's like," Morelli observed as we settled into the lawn furniture on the balcony.

It usually took until July or August for the ocean to heat up enough to risk venturing into. Little kids weren't so picky, but maybe they didn't feel cold the way that adults did. I remembered spending weekends in the early summer at Point Pleasant, jumping into the water and only feeling freezing for a minute until I had gotten used to the temperature. The idea of facing the ocean in mid April was enough to want to put on an extra sweatshirt.

It was a little depressing, actually. When had I gotten so _old_?

"Freezing," I replied, a little sadly.

"Yeah, probably," Morelli agreed, taking my hand in his. He must have sensed my mood, because he said, "We could still walk on the beach. Maybe look for seashells," he added, teasingly.

_That_ sounded like fun. Not tonight, but definitely at some point during the trip.

"I'd like that," I replied, smiling.

We sat out on the balcony for awhile, until it became dark and the stars started to come out. Not that you could see all that many—pollution and the street lights and all of that. Still, there were some, and it was nice to just be there with Morelli, not in a rush to go anywhere or do anything, and just be able to enjoy sitting there and being with him.

It occurred to me that was much as I was dreading the idea of marriage, a honeymoon with Morelli would be a lot like this. Plenty of alone time between the two of us, possibly on a beach or exotic island, planning our future together.

The idea dawned on me that being married to _this_ man—as opposed to Dickie—didn't really seem all that scary and restricting.

More like rather warm and reassuring.


	15. Nature attacks

We went to bed on the early side. I was pretty worn out from the day's events, and was looking forward to taking a long, hot shower and snuggling next to Morelli after we made love one or two more times. As soon as I had become a very contented puddle of mush, Morelli held me in his arms while I closed my eyes and waited for sleep to arrive.

I woke up early the next morning when I heard Morelli returning to bed after going to the bathroom.

"Did I wake you up?" he asked, a little chagrined, as he pulled the covers over himself.

"Think so," I murmured, only half awake. "What time is it?"

He squinted at the clock on the TV. "5:45."

"Umph," I groaned. "Too early."

I felt Morelli pull me into a hug. "Go back to bed, Cupcake."

I shut my eyes and nestled against him, or more specifically, his soft shirt he'd used for sleeping. I think I said, "Okay", but exhaustion took over, and within moments I was dreaming about flying hamsters being chased by flying hermit crabs.

When I woke up for real, it was after 8:30. Morelli must have used room service to order breakfast, or stopped at one of the cafes near our hotel, because part of what woke me up was the delicious scent of pancakes, sausages, and scrambled eggs. I swore my nose was the first part of me to emerge from under the blankets.

"Mmm," I murmured as I took a few deep breaths.

Morelli brought over a tray with a still covered plate. "Here's yours."

I removed the cover to find a duplicate of what Morelli had been eating, except my pancakes had extra whipped cream and there were raspberries on the side, just as he knew I loved them. Instantly revived, I inhaled deeply before taking a bite of the pancakes, and chewed slowly. _Delicious._

"Thank you," I told Morelli, once I'd swallowed. "This is incredible. Room service?"

He grinned. "Of course. Figured you'd need lots of fuel after our busy day yesterday," he explained, taking a seat next to be on the bed, his tray of food still in hand. "Do you mind that I ordered for you?"

I shook my head and took another bite, this time from the eggs. They were _almost _as good as the pancakes. Morelli knew my favorite foods almost as well as I did.

Sometimes, he even knew whether or not I'd like a new food before I tried it.

"What did you want to do today?" I asked between mouthfuls.

"Figured we'd spend the morning _together_," he said, raising his eyebrows and draping an arm around my shoulder in an attempt to sound casual. I snickered and almost choked on my pancakes when I heard our code word for sex. "Then, spend the afternoon walking around, and maybe checking out the boardwalk. That's when everything will probably be open."

That sounded good to me. Once I'd finished my breakfast, I was becoming aware of a new hunger.

"I like all of those ideas," I replied, putting the tray of food aside. "I think we should get started right away."

"That's a _very_ good idea, Cupcake," Morelli told me.

An hour later, I was laying in Morelli's arms, which seemed to be where I'd be spending most of my time of the trip. Extremely happy but overwhelmed with the relaxation induced by getting intimate with Morelli, I nestled next to him and let my eyes close.

"If we keep going at this pace, I'm going to burn out before tomorrow," I commented, running a hand around his chest. He stifled a giggle, and my eyes opened. "Does that tickle?" I asked innocently.

Morelli attempted to keep a straight face, but the twitching of the muscles around his lips betrayed him.

"Not…really," he said, removing my hand.

I placed my hand directly under his neck and moved it around a little. "What about this?"

Morelli's arms shot up from my sides and snatched me into a hug. It sort of reminded me of a Venus fly trap, and I giggled.

"I don't think so, Cupcake," he told me with a closed mouth smile. "Besides, I thought you were tired."

I wriggled my way out of his arms—not an easy feat. "Not too tired to tickle you."

"Good to know," he said, rolling on his stomach so I was trapped under him.

"Hey!" I exclaimed, attempting to break out of his grasp.

"There are other games we could play, Cupcake, if you're feeling frisky."

I head butted his stomach, and immediately Morelli was laying on his back. "Shit, Steph, that hurt!" he practically whined, rubbing his stomach.

"Serves you right," I retorted. "You can't contain the tickle monster."

With that, I lunged my fingers under Morelli's neck, sending him into giggle spasms. I was merciful, though. I ended the attack after five seconds.

Okay, maybe ten.

Morelli took it good naturedly enough, but commented that I'd pay for that later.

I was _pretty_ sure he was joking, and just rolled my eyes and put my head on his chest. He rubbed my head as I drifted off into my second nap of the day.

Room service for lunch after having it for dinner and breakfast seemed a little excessive, even for me, so Morelli and I decided to stop at one of the stores on the boardwalk to eat while we explored. This seemed like a good idea and, besides, I was craving pizza and those fresh cut French fries you could only find on the boardwalk. Pinos was the best pizza in Trenton, but if you go to the shore part of New Jersey, you can find great pizza that _might_ rival it, both in taste and in a complete lack of nutrients.

It was unseasonably warm, even for the middle of April, so when Morelli suggested that we wear flip flops and no socks, I thought that it was a pretty good idea. Probably, neither of us would actually go in the ocean, but we could walk along the beach and test the water to see if it was worth going in to our ankles.

Feeling on the girly side, another symptom of spending a lot of time around Morelli, I put on a yellow and blue flowered sundress I'd bought the year before I became a bounty hunter. One of the nice things about being thirty and having decent metabolism is that, theoretically, I can wear the same clothes year after year. This never stops me from buying new stuff, but it's nice to have options. This dress had been hanging in my closet at my parents house until Morelli and I became an official couple, which meant it had escaped the great firebombing of my apartment several months beforehand.

Before dressing, I'd showered and drenched my hair, but hadn't bothered to wash it because I'd done that the night before. I let my hair dry naturally so that it fell in mostly gentle curls, and smoothed out the frizz with some hair gel. I put on a pair of blue earrings Morelli had bought me for my birthday, and studied myself in the mirror. No need for ample amounts of mascara today. I decided I looked pretty good, if a little pale.

I was happy to observe that my breasts were slowly returning to their normal size.

Morelli had put on brown shorts that covered his knees and a matching, soft polo t-shirt that was so soft, it could be used as a nightgown or a pillow. I made a mental note to commandeer it for _my _sleeping attire the next time it returned from the laundry. His hair, as usual, needed a cut, but he'd shaved this morning to balance it out. There wouldn't be any stubble when we kissed.

I grabbed a small purse and Morelli put his wallet in the pocket of his shorts. He smiled at me and gave me a peck on the forehead.

"You look sexy like that," he told me. "I'm not sure I've ever seen that dress before."

"I'd left it with my parents for awhile," I explained. "Like the earrings?"

His grin widened. "Of course. Whoever chose them must have had good taste."

"Yeah, he knows me pretty well," I agreed, smiling.

We held hands as we headed out of our suite and walked downstairs. Walking down floor flights of stairs wasn't exactly easy or enjoyable, but it was nothing compared to walking up them. I felt a little sorry for Morelli, since yesterday he'd been carrying two suitcases while making the trip. Of course, he _had_ insisted on doing it without any help.

Our hotel was on the boardwalk, so there was no need to ask for instructions. We left the building and took a right, since that was in the direction of the stores and vendors. The heavenly scent of boardwalk food invaded my nose, sure to thwart even the most careful dieter. Good thing I still had a couple of pounds to gain back.

"Mmm," I murmured, breathing in deeply.

"Yeah, I'd probably be three hundred pounds if we lived here year round," Morelli commented.

"Or become immune to the scent of boardwalk food," I pointed out, but this option was actually _less_ appealing than either of us becoming massive blimps.

We decided to stop at the bakery where everyone wanted the cinnamon rolls and donuts, and place our order. The store was packed with people. You had to pick a number from a machine and when one of the workers at the counter called your name, you had to shout that you were there, because they'd only repeat a number once before heading to the next person. We were number 50, and they were at 23 when we started. I was glad that I'd had the sense to keep the list in my purse pocket, because everything seemed to move quickly.

When it was our turn, a heavyset woman who looked to be in her late 70's took our order and appeared to take everything in without blinking. Probably, she received outrageous orders like that on a regular basis. Or at least once a season.

She wrote everything down and got Morelli's cell phone number. "Do you want to pay now or later?" she asked us.

"How much is it?" Morelli piped up, glancing at the cookies and other goodies on display.

The figure was three digits, and neither of us had enough money.

"Do you accept credit cards?" Morelli asked.

The woman pointed to the sign. _Sorry, NO credit cards accepted._

"I could pay half now, and half when we pick it up," Morelli offered, counting the bills in his wallet.

"Well," she explained, "we have a minimum charge of fifty dollars to place orders valued at over seventy-five dollars, and you can pay the rest when you pick it up. But if you pay 30% now, you don't need to wait in line when you pick up your order," she explained.

Since 30% was only a little more than the fifty dollar charge, we decided to go with that.

Morelli asked for a receipt, confirmed that everything would be ready on the day that we were due to leave, and then we bought an assortment of goodies for us to eat that day.

"If they forget, we're going to have hell to pay," Morelli muttered as we left. "Did you see how many people were waiting when we left?"

I had. I'd also noted that the next available number on the machine had been 138. "I've never been to this bakery before, but it must be good. Everyone who wanted baked goods specified they wanted them from here."

"I can't decide if they're charging us an arm and a leg, or we have so many people telling us to get stuff for them that it really costs an arm and a leg," Morelli admitted. "But the stuff we got today wasn't too pricey."

"It's about the same as the Tasty Pastry," I informed Morelli, taking a bite of a large chocolate chip cookie. It _was_ really good. They even added a hint of mint to the cookie, which I'd never heard of before. I made a mental note to remind my mom about this, and then another one to remind myself to remind her. I'd probably forget about both. "You don't buy enough donuts, or you'd know this kind of thing."

Morelli snagged a blueberry muffin from our bag of goodies. "Tasty Pastry usually doesn't open until after I'm supposed to be at the precinct."

That was true. Morelli, more often than not, got up at around 5AM each morning. Sleeping in, for him, meant sleeping until 6:30. The Tasty Pastry usually opened around 8AM and closed around 5. This was actually pretty late, since most bakeries I'd gone to had morning hours and closed a little after noon or 1PM.

"There's always Dunkin' Donuts," I offered, stealing a bite from his muffin.

Morelli retaliated by breaking off half a chunk of my second cookie. This one was oatmeal raisin, I generally considered to be too healthy for my taste and I'd actually started eating it by mistake, so I ended up getting the better deal.

"Yeah, they're good," Morelli agreed.

Most of the stores on the boardwalk were open, but the boardwalk itself wasn't very crowded. Not deserted by a long shot, but hardly what it would be like in the middle of the summer. I observed that there were some people on the beach, but almost no one was in the water. Just people reading or working on their tans. No kids building sandcastles or splashing their siblings with cold water.

If liked the beach but weren't thrilled about sharing it with noisy kids, you'd probably think this was the perfect time to visit Point Pleasant. Warm enough to enjoy the outside aspects, but not so warm that you'd break into a sweat walking five feet—unless, of course, you were 500 pounds and then you would probably break into a sweat no matter what you did. I imagined that the temperature was in the early 70's, and an occasional breeze kept me and Morelli from getting too warm during our brisk walk.

After we made it to the end of the boardwalk, Morelli suggested that we walk along the beach for a little. Our bag of goodies was mostly empty, the only thing remaining being a prune cookie that somehow made its way into the bag, even though we hadn't ordered it.

Of course, there were a couple of other treats that we found in the bag that we hadn't asked for, so maybe the people who worked the counters regularly included extras.

We threw out the bag and threw the prune cookie to a watching seagull.

"Hope he enjoys it," Morelli laughed.

I took off my flip flops and enjoyed the feeling of the warm sand on my feet as I walked.

Morelli followed suit, and we held hands as we made our way closer to the edge of the water.

I tested the water with my big toe and immediately backed away.

"Cold?" Morelli asked.

"Freezing. _Ice_ would be warmer than that."

Morelli rolled his eyes at me and brought his entire left foot to the edge of the water.

"Pretty cold," he agreed. But he didn't remove his foot from the water, and soon the other one had joined it.

"You're crazy!" I told him, smiling.

Then, he grabbed me and lifted me by my arms so I was dangling a few inches in the air above the water.

I screamed. "You better not throw me in there!" I warned him, fully expecting Morelli to walk back a few steps and return us safely to the damp sand.

Morelli didn't move, except to dangle me a couple of inches closer to the water.

"Joe! I am _not_ kidding!" I half shrieked.

But I didn't really expect him to do it.

"I did tell you there'd be payback for the tickle monster stunt earlier," he told me, smirking a little. He was obviously getting a kick out of this..."I think this would be appropriate."

Okay, so maybe he _was_ considering it. I thought fast.

"If you drop me in the water, I won't have sex with you for the rest of the day. _Or_ at night," I threatened.

This seemed to give Morelli reason to pause. No sex for almost a full day of a vacation that was (implicitly) meant for sex…well, that was pretty serious.

"Really?" he asked, and he sounded incredulous. As my face was towards the water, I couldn't tell if he was smiling or not.

"Yeah, really! It might even continue into tomorrow," I added.

I heard a sigh, and then Morelli set me down on my feet, safely in the wet sand. I backed up a few feet. Morelli just smiled and messed up my hair with his hands. Then, he pulled me close to him.

"Would you have really done that?"

"Probably not," he admitted. "But I guess you'll never know."

Hmph. "Well, _I_ was serious," I informed him.

Probably.

Morelli just pulled me closer to him, and I felt warm and safe against him. "All right, Cupcake," he told me. Then, "Guess the tickle monster will have to find another way to pay up." He ran a hand through my hair. "I can think of a few things that don't involve ice cold water…"

I looked up at him and smiled. "We'll see."

We didn't spend much more time on the beach. The wind was somewhat stronger there, and I thought that it we were there for _too_ long, I'd regret my decision not to bring a sweatshirt. Of course, Morelli would probably keep me in a bear hug so I wouldn't get too cold, but he felt cold just like I did.

We walked the commercial part of the boardwalk for awhile, in search of good pizza. There were several places that looked pretty good, but Morelli and I wanted to find somewhere that had _great_ pizza. We finally settled on a small stand that had tables and chairs in front of it, shared with other vendors.

"Should we order a pie, or just a few slices?" Morelli questioned, glancing at the prices.

A whole pie would probably be as must as four or five individual slices, but then we'd have to carry the rest of it back. Morelli seemed to read my mind and we went with the individual slices option.

"Also, we can try different toppings this way," I told him.

I knew Morelli's pizza preferences by heart, but sometimes the vendors on the boardwalk offered strange combinations you wouldn't think to order. Once, when I was a kid, I passed a place that offered pineapples as toppings. That was before it had become a more standard topping.

We each ordered two large slices and sat down to eat at one of the tables in an area shared by other vendors. The pizza was easily as good as I remembered, if not better. I inhaled my first slice and slowed down to enjoy the second slice. Morelli ate with the same rigor as I did, and we barely talked as we ate, we were so focused on the food.

About halfway through our second slices, we had slowed down enough to remember the other person. Morelli grinned at me and reached over to ruffle my hair, but the table was too big, so his hand only reached my cheek. He stroked it carefully with his thumb and forefinger.

"You look so beautiful," he told me quietly, and that made me blush more than had he said I was sexy.

"Thanks," I murmured. Then, to lighten the mood, I added, "You're not so bad looking, either."

Morelli laughed. "Good genes. Not that ours are anything to sniff at." He paused before adding, "If we ever have kids, they'll be the envy of their peers. Probably be able to eat a whole pizza _and_ fries _and _a chocolate cake without gaining an ounce."

"Or without breaking out into zits," I added. I had been pretty fortunate not to have many pimples and other skin blemishes as a teen, but I didn't think Morellis even knew what a pimple _was._

"That, too. Morellis have perfect skin."

I rolled my eyes. "You must have had at least one zit in your life. Or one of your sisters."

Morelli chewed on his lip in concentration. "Me, never. Maybe my sisters got them, but they always used makeup, so you could never tell. I like to think we're immune."

We were pretty quiet for awhile as we finished the remnants of our pizza. I felt like I could eat another slice, but I wanted to save room for French fries, so I abstained.

Morelli reached out and held my hand across the table. "I'm so glad we're doing this," he told me.

I wasn't sure if "this" referred to our eventual marriage, or taking a long weekend at the beach. I figured he meant the latter.

"Me too."

We got up, threw out our trash, and resumed our walk along the boardwalk. Before we'd walked for five minutes, we were bombarded by the scent of fresh cut fries.

"Mmm," we both said, practically in unison.

"I have a twenty on me," I offered, figuring it was only fair to pay for the fries since Morelli had gotten the pizza. Well, that and the hotel bill…okay, so it was _more_ than fair to pay for French fries.

Morelli shook his head. "I got it, Cupcake."

Feeling surprised but not put off, I shrugged. "Okay."

We stopped at the stand with the longest line—those are always the best—and I scanned the options. Aside from regular fresh cut fries, they also served fried oreos, onion rings, hot dogs, and various assortments of drinks. I decided to get a medium order of fries with a small order of lemonade. Morelli opted for the same, with the exception of a Coke instead of lemonade.

"Let's eat these on the way back to the hotel," I suggested.

"Okay, but we better watch out for seagulls," Morelli cautioned.

I rolled my eyes at him—this wasn't my first time at a New Jersey beach. I knew that seagulls were flying monsters who stole food from unsuspecting tourists.

When the food was ready, I was amazed at how many there were. I'd forgotten how large a "medium" order of fries was at the boardwalk. I probably wouldn't eat half of them.

I selected a large one to eat, and no sooner had I placed it in my mouth than a _huge_ seagull came out of nowhere, diving towards my face. I yelped and ducked, and in that instant, the whole container of fries fell to the ground along with my entire cup of lemonade. Well, at least none of it spilled on me. The seagull must have figured that the fries looked tastier than my face, and dived towards the ground. A few others appeared out of nowhere and joined the first seagull in its feast.

I stood staring at the mess on the boardwalk, not believing what had happened. After a minute, I looked up and found that Morelli was laughing silently. He tried to replace the grin with a solemn expression.

"Aw, Steph, I'm sorry," he said, putting a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

"I-it just came out of _nowhere_!" I gasped, turning my gaze to the rapidly disappearing French fries lining the boardwalk.

"You can share mine," he offered, "or I can get you more."

He'd already consumed an impressive quantity of his French fries, given that the scene with the seagull had only taken a minute. I opted for the latter.

We returned to the French fry vendor, me as red as a tomato, and Morelli with an arm around my shoulder in a reassuring manner.

"I saw what happened," a red haired teenage boy at the stand said as we approached. Fortunately, the line was long gone. "I take it you're here to get a second batch?" At our nods, the man continued, "We offer a 50% discount if you've been the victim of seagull theft."

Morelli laughed. "No kidding?"

The kid grinned. "It was our new manager's idea. He thinks the seagulls increase our business."

I wondered if the seagulls knew about this.

"What happens if the seagulls attack a second time?" I wondered.

A shrug. "75% off, I guess? It hasn't happened yet."

"Guess people are more careful the second time," Morelli told me as he handed over a couple of dollars.

No kidding. I would guard _these_ fries with my life.

I held one hand over my fries, carrying them with the other. Morelli had my open bottle of water on hand, ready to place it on my lips when I gave him a nod. Our agreed upon signal. No seagulls attacked either of us, but I was beginning to realize that you couldn't be too careful. I didn't eat many of the fries on the way back, partly because I was watching out for the flying devils, but also because I sort of wanted to enjoy them sitting down at the suite. Morelli left about half of his untouched during our walk, possibly so he could eat with me when we returned.

I kicked off my flip flops and plopped down on one of the overstuffed chairs before settling down to enjoy the fries. Morelli took the seat next to me and did the same. We ate in silence until I never wanted to see another French fry again, or not until our next trip to the boardwalk.

"You're pretty far away, Cupcake," Morelli observed.

I smiled and stood in front of him. "Want me to sit next to you?"

The chairs were so big that two regular sized people could share them without feeling too crowded.

"How about this?" he asked, and lifted me onto his lap.

I turned so I was sitting on my side. "I like this way more."

Morelli's arms wrapped around me, pulling me into a hug. He rested his chin against my head.

"This way is pretty nice, too."

I lowered my head so it was resting on Morelli's shoulders. "Is this okay?"

He repositioned his head so that it was still resting against mine. "Yeah, and this?"

"Mmm hmm," I responded, now resting my hands in his.

We were silent for awhile, Morelli holding me and me slouched up against him. It felt very comfortable, and neither of us saw much reason to talk and break the silence. A part of me wondered how long we'd stay like this while another part of me was giving a nap some serious consideration.

"We should do this more often," I commented, hiding a yawn.

"Cuddle, or visit Point Pleasant?" Morelli asked, watching as I repositioned my head against his soft shirt.

"Both," I laughed, "but I meant cuddle."

His response surprised me. "Really? You like that?"

"Huh?" I tilted my head back to look into Morelli's face.

I hoped that we weren't going to have a fight, but it seemed like we were about due for one. The last few weeks had been going pretty well, minus my getting sick, and the trip was going _extremely_ well. It would suck to be on the outs with Morelli after spending less than a full day at Point Pleasant, but if he was going to start a fight, I'd _have_ to defend myself…

Morelli's face reddened, and I could tell that he felt sheepish, as opposed to uneasy.

"It's just that…you know what, forget I said anything. Never mind," he muttered.

"No," I insisted. "What did you mean?"

I removed myself from his lap, but remained on the chair. It just didn't seem appropriate to have a fight while behind held…

Morelli sighed. "Steph, you know I love you…"

"But?" I interjected.

Another sigh. I was getting irritated. If he kept this up, it would take a lot of self control not to smack him.

"Okay, you're not cold or anything like that, but you don't seem to…" He paused again, obviously choosing his words carefully. "You don't initiate a lot of physical affection."

This was news to me. Plus, it kind of hurt.

"What the hell do you mean?" I sort of snapped.

"It's usually me who does the hugging and the kissing," he explained. "I know you like the kissing and the sex, but the other stuff? I can't always tell. In fact," he added, "I can't really remember the last time you just gave me a spontaneous hug. That's more my role."

I didn't feel angry as much as confused. Maybe a little hurt. Was this true? Did I really back away from that kind of thing? Well, not back away, exactly, but let Morelli be the one to do all of that? Funny, because I'd always thought of our relationship as good and based heavily on sex. Maybe Morelli wanted more romance, more physical interaction that wasn't blatantly sexual, and I just hadn't noticed.

I tried to think back to when we first got together, and beforehand. Okay, when Morelli had visited my apartment after he'd been released, he'd held me for awhile because I was still sort of distraught over the whole Alpha thing. When we'd been dealing with Kenny Mancuso, he'd also hugged me a couple of times. He'd even rubbed my back, but I was pretty sure that had been a segue to sex—which didn't happen because I'd found the microphone he'd planted. During the whole Uncle Mo thing, Morelli had sort of tried to keep his distance because he'd thought I was a walking disaster, but he still managed to touch me a couple of times. Brushing hair out of my face, maybe holding an arm.

I remembered, very clearly, that he'd also initiated a long hug during the night my apartment had been firebombed. I'd called him at 2AM in search of a place to spend the night—or several nights—and Morelli had risen to the occasion. I recalled that he'd provided milk and oreo cookies in case I'd wanted to talk about what had happened. A few days later, we had sex for the first time in over a decade. As I searched my mind, I realized there was a lot of seemingly little stuff that Morelli had done, well before we'd gotten together, that I'd dismissed or attributed to his being a pain in the ass. Or how Morelli would seek me out, which I'd interpreted as attempting to use me for information. Looking back, though, it had been kind of cute, the way he sought out reasons to extend physical contact, as well as gain dinner invitations and then invitations to share the leftovers. I'd known for awhile that Joe Morelli wasn't a bad guy, or even the jerk that he'd been as a teenager. It had taken longer to admit that he'd changed and wasn't just a decent cop, but also a great person.

I guessed that I'd been the one to keep my distance from him. Even now, when we were allegedly engaged, I rarely—if ever—gave him a spontaneous hug or took his hand in mine. Not that I objected when he did it, but wasn't that the point he was making? That it was kind of hypocritical for me to say that we should cuddle more, when I'd been making him start all of that? Also, sometimes, I hadn't even acted that happy to be on the receiving end of his arm around my shoulder, or the "just got back from work and am happy to see you" hug.

I turned away from Morelli, confused. What _did_ I want with him?

"Steph? Are you okay?" he asked, wrapping an arm around my shoulder—and I was almost positive he wasn't even aware that he was doing it, proving my point.

I nodded, and then felt the tears spill down my cheeks.


	16. Conversations

**Stephanie**

Part of me felt humiliated. I _hated_ crying in front of Morelli. He never gave me a hard time about it, but I knew that he couldn't stand to see me upset because he always got a pained expression on his face when I started crying. I always felt like I was making a fool out of myself when I let myself cry in front of _anyone_. In the Burg, you didn't express that sort of thing. I could probably count on two hands the number of times I'd cried in front of any member of my family since I became a teenager. My sister, appropriately nicknamed "Saint Valerie", _never_ got upset. I hadn't been an emotional basket case as a kid, but next to her, I was. It was one of the many things that distinguished us and made me feel less than her in my parents' eyes.

Another part of me wondered why I never initiated hugs or kisses with Morelli. I could always blame it on the way I was raised. Growing up, my mom expressed affection with food. Hugs weren't a regular occurrence. Then again, I'd been rebelling against this Burg mentality for most of my life. I had no trouble giving Mary Lou hugs. Not so much the kissing part. On the other hand, we'd been best friends since we'd been in diapers, so there wasn't much insecurity there. There was some emotional insecurity with Morelli, even when it was just us.

Probably, it had more to do with not completely trusting Morelli. Even though the idea of being with him filled me with warm and fuzzy feelings _all_ over, he _had_ hurt me in the past and if I wanted to be completely honest with myself, I was probably still working through that. I knew he wouldn't leave me after sex and write disturbing poems about it on public property, but the past was still there. I _wanted_ to forgive Morelli, and on most days, I'd say I had, but I guess the damage was still there.

Now, Morelli cradled me in his arms and I contemplated our similar upbringings. We'd both grown up in the Burg, with its strict unwritten codes of behavior, most of which I'd rebelled against. He'd rebelled against the expectations of everyone, becoming a decent person despite his family history of the males being cheating drunks. More than that, though, he'd rebelled against the prohibition regarding expressing affection.

Not that he did a lot of that in public, but it seemed second nature in private. On the other hand, I certainly enjoyed his hugs and his kisses and encouraged them, but I always seemed to be the recipient instead of the giver in these exchanges. Sure, I hugged Morelli back and reciprocated his kisses with my own, but he was always the one who started these exchanges. Maybe there was more Burg in me than I'd have liked to admit.

The thought was pretty depressing.

Then, I reminded myself that I initiated sex at least half the time, and felt a little better about myself. I wasn't becoming a Burg housewife.

So, I guess it made sense that he'd been surprised that I'd asked for more non sexual physical intimacy.

Once this registered in my brain, I felt a little more ready to have this conversation. So, I leaned my head back against his shoulder to look at him in the face. "I'm sorry," I whispered.

Morelli's arms tightened around me. "Steph, you have _nothing_ to be sorry for. _I'm_ sorry, okay? It was a stupid comment."

I shook my head. "It's true, though," I said miserably. "I'm a cold person."

Morelli raised his eyebrows at me. "Cupcake, you are _anything_ but cold."

Except he hadn't been saying that five minutes ago, I observed. I definitely wasn't frigid when we were in bed together. I was even willing to try some things I had flat out refused to do when I'd been married to Dickie.

"I'll try harder," I promised, but I realized how awkward that would be for both of us. I'd probably try to hug him at the wrong time, or we'd start making out in front of the guys at his precinct.

Actually, the second one might not be _too_ bad for Morelli. I could see some of his coworkers commenting on me being a good kisser, if that. The thought made me smile. Still, it wasn't like I was going to invent some disgustingly sweet nickname to use on him in public. _That_ would cause lasting damage to his reputation…

"Steph, as cheesy as it sounds, I really don't want you to be anything but yourself." He paused. "Well, maybe if you could stop getting your cars blown up or stolen…"

I gave him what I considered to be a light punch in the stomach. "That's _not_ my fault!" I protested.

"Ow," Morelli complained, loosening his hold on me to rub his stomach.

So much for the punch not hurting much.

"Sorry," I said for the tenth time that day.

Morelli stopped rubbing his stomach and took a seat next to me, putting an arm around my shoulders. I leaned into him. "I love _you_, Steph. Even if you are insane." When I glared at him, he added, "Which is mostly a good thing."

Glad that the conversation was moving away from the dangerous waters of expressing our feelings towards physical affection, I was happy to take the bait.

"You're not exactly normal either, Morelli," I told him.

Morelli let out a laugh and gave my shoulders a squeeze. "This I gotta hear."

"Well, for one thing, you're _much_ hotter than normal."

He grinned widely. "Uh huh. Okay, I can't say I disagree with you there."

"I mean," I continued, "aside from the fact that you have a _tiny_ scar on your face and you usually look like you need a haircut, you pretty much wake up looking drop dead sexy."

His face began to turn red. "Maybe that's because you're not wearing contacts when you wake up," he pointed out.

I rolled my eyes. "I'm serious."

Morelli brushed a piece of hair out of my face. "Cupcake, you don't exactly wake up looking like a zombie."

I made a face. "Yeah right. I need a shower, a blow dryer, and a ton of makeup just to look okay."

Morelli raised his eyebrows. "Sweetie, you never look just _okay. _Besides, I love your crazy hair when you just wake up."

I did another eye roll, but I appreciated the compliment. "Uh huh. I look like a mad scientist."

Which he'd told me, albeit jokingly, on more than one occasion.

"A very sexy mad scientist," Morelli contradicted. At my snort, he added, "I think it's a girl thing."

Eyes narrowed, I asked, "And what do you mean by that?"

Morelli raised his hands in the universal signal of surrender. "Just that women usually have longer hair than men, so it takes more work to keep it under control. Especially after sleeping on it for eight hours or so."

He had a point. "You think I should get super short hair?" I teased.

As though on cue, Morelli slung one arm around my shoulder and began to play with my hair with the other one. "I think you'd look sexy even if you were bald. But I like your hair the way it is right now. Maybe even a little longer," he added.

That was something to think about. Later, though.

"So what you're saying is, you don't take hotness enhancing drugs?" I queried.

"We need to get you new contact lenses, Cupcake," he grinned.

"Okay." I paused, considering other alternatives that did not have to do with my eyesight. My mind immediately turned to Twilight. "Maybe you're a vampire."

He made a face. "I don't drink your blood, and I certainly don't sparkle when I go out in the sun."

"The blood part is questionable," I retorted. "You might do it when I'm sleeping."

Speaking of which, I was starting to feel pretty tired. Crying usually wears me out.

"I might," he conceded with a grin, "but I guess you'll never know."

I tried to swallow a yawn, but it came out anyway. Morelli scooped me up in his arms and headed in the direction of the bedroom.

"Time for your nap," he told me, placing me on the bed. I yawned but, not wanting to sleep in my clothes, started to take off my dress before he could tuck me into the covers. Morelli watched as I stripped down to just my underwear, and grinned.

I rolled my eyes at him. "_No,_ we're not doing it right now. I'm too tired."

Morelli gave me a kiss on the back of my neck. "How about after you get your beauty sleep? I can show you some of my vampire moves."

I smiled. "Maybe. Hey, I thought you said you weren't a vampire."

Morelli just did another grin, which faded as I walked over to the dresser and began searching for a nightgown.

Morelli stepped in front of me, blocking my view of the assorted clothes and nighttime attire I'd jammed into the drawers.

"I think you're too tired for that, Cupcake."

I gave him a halfhearted shove. "Not _that_ tired, Morelli. Now, move."

Morelli must have realized that I was serious, because he stepped aside without further protest. As a means of compromise, I put on the sexiest nightgown I packed, which was basically a see through slip that covered my butt, but not much else. Morelli carried my dress and bra over to the top of one of our dressers and then got a good look at me and groaned.

"You're trying to torture me, aren't you?"

I pulled the covers off the bed and got comfortable under the sheets. "I'd consider it a compromise. It's better than sleeping naked."

"I don't know about that," Morelli commented.

"Remember what we were talking about earlier?" I asked. At his nod, I continued, "I'll be extra nice later."

Morelli just groaned and started to head for the door. Acting before my brain caught up with my mouth, I spoke up.

"Will you stay with me? I thought we could cuddle."

Even saying the word gave me goosebumps.

Morelli's eyes seemed to soften as he considered for exactly half a second. "Okay."

He sure didn't waste time as he peeled off most of his clothes. Less than a minute later, he was lying next to me, holding me in his arms, only wearing a pair of boxers. I sighed contentedly and lay me head against his chest. He began to rub my shoulders with his free hand.

"When you wake up," he promised, "I'm going to show you why you think I'm hot."

I maneuvered myself out of his arms to give him a kiss on the lips. "I'm _really_ looking forward to that."

Morelli tucked a stray piece of hair away from my face. "Me too. Sweet dreams, Cupcake."

**Joe**

I was glad I'd been able to smooth things over with Steph before they'd reached an all out fight. We weren't new to fighting, and the makeup sex usually made them worth it, but I didn't want our vacation to be ruined with a huge confrontation about Steph's lack of physical affection. Especially since, while it may bug me from time to time, I mostly accepted it as one of her quirks. It was similar to how she was obsessed with peanut butter, whereas I could take or leave the stuff.

Not that I'd been right to confront Steph about it.

I'd known for awhile that she came from a family that showed love by showering the other person with food, as opposed to hugs or just telling that person that they loved them.

My family had been a little better at the hugs and telling people you loved them. Or maybe it was one of the ways I'd matured over the years. Also, most of the women I'd dated had been pretty affectionate. Lots of kissing, plenty of hugs, and they always wanted to cuddle after sex. Sometimes, it had been a little too much, so Steph's standoffishness was actually sort of appealing. It wasn't completely unlike getting used to a cat after spending your whole life with dogs. Steph was loving in her own way, but she didn't run to greet you at the door with a hug that would knock the breath out of you.

Had she always been like this, or was her reserve a response to how I'd treated her when we were growing up? I remembered Steph being sort of quiet at the Tasty Pastry, almost shy. Of course, girls were usually nervous around me. She'd certainly been loud enough with her friends.

At the same time, even if Steph wasn't used to giving hugs, I guess I'd figured I'd been used to this until that comment came out of my mouth.

It felt like the kind of thing you'd tell someone if you were drunk, but I hadn't had any wine or beer that day.

Then again, being around Steph makes me happy and kind of tipsy a lot of the time, so I guess that there are similarities there. The main question was whether Steph acted like she did because it was a comfort issue, or because I'd hurt her in the past and it was some kind of defense mechanism?

Unfortunately, I didn't think that even Steph really knew the answer to that question. I'd just have to be patient and let her know I was there. I wouldn't pressure her to do anything she wasn't completely comfortable with.

I realized that our families were expecting that this vacation would result in some concrete answers to the questions they'd been hinting at, if not asking outright.

Questions like where's Stephanie's ring, when's the wedding, and are you going to insist that Steph quits her bounty hunting job and become a decent wife?

Well, the last question had a pretty concrete answer. A definite _no. _I had no business telling Stephanie what kind of job to take, even if her current job sort of scared me at times.

Then again, if she decided (on her own) that bounty hunting no longer appealed to her now that she was going to get married and didn't _need _a source of income, I would completely and totally encourage that decision.

Hell, even if she decided that she wanted to take on another job that was almost as risky, I'd be okay with that. I knew where the lines were, since she'd drawn them plenty of times. I smiled as I remembered her kicking me out of her Buick, half naked, after she'd discovered the bug I'd planted in her handbag. I'd done it to keep her safe when she'd been tracking Kenny Mancuso, but I'd been stupid to count on her not finding it. What rotten timing, for her to have found it just when we were about to have sex for the first time in fourteen years!

Looking back, I should have come clean and told Steph that I wanted to bug her for safety reasons. She'd let me place a bug on her just a few weeks prior to that case, back when I'd been FTA. Sure, she'd gotten even with me by wearing the bug in her panties, but she'd worn it so I could keep her safe, and that had been what mattered. Really, I could think of several times when I probably could have kept Steph safer if I'd been more honest with her. I didn't want to be a tyrant, but it was hard not to come across as a little hard headed when danger seemed to stalk Stephanie Plum. I guessed that, even now, I was still learning by trial and error what she would and would not tolerate from me.

I watched her now, sleeping peacefully, totally content in my arms. I always enjoyed watching Stephanie sleep. She'd look younger, like the kid I'd grown up knowing even if we rarely interacted. Sometimes, I _still_ couldn't believe that I was dating _Stephanie Plum,_ the girl I'd had a crush on as a teenager but was too scared to do anything about.

Scared of her family as much as her. I'd known my reputation as a bad boy.

The other questions would be more difficult, but necessary to ask. Okay, maybe not so much the ring one, but we'd have to figure out when we wanted a wedding, which implied that we both wanted to get married. There was no question that I wanted a relationship with Stephanie, and that would include marriage eventually. I considered myself to be a fairly traditional guy. Well, maybe in the very beginning, when we started having sex again, I'd been afraid of a relationship. But Steph had been equally scared, even if she wouldn't admit it. I'd hurt her before, after all. And when we'd first flirted with the idea of hooking up, back after Mo had been caught, I'd gone into hiding (from her) for a few months. That hadn't been a good decision, even if I'd told myself I had been attempting to give her time to really think things through.

After we'd first hooked up after fourteen years, back when Steph had been staying at my apartment, I'd been extremely nervous about what would happen between us. I wasn't so much opposed to marriage as opposed to marriage to someone who'd gotten me addicted to Maalox through her insane lifestyle. A good Burg housewife would be the obvious choice, and there were plenty of women out there who would be happy to join the Morelli clan. Still, I wasn't attracted to any of them, and I was attracted to Stephanie. At first, I'd been too scared to admit that it went further than attraction and chemistry. As soon as she started throwing terms around like "commitment", I'd gotten scared and we'd stopped having sex altogether. Later on, we sort of came to an agreement that we could be together in a relationship without needing to set a wedding date.

Except, of course, my nosy and scary grandmother butted in and scared us (okay, more Steph than myself) into getting engaged. I'd initially been opposed to the idea, but the more I thought about it, the more attracted I became. I mean, Steph WAS the girl for me, and I knew that there were other men (specifically, Ranger) who had their eye on her. I wasn't as old fashioned as the rest of the men in my family, who would pretty saw marriage as the man claiming the woman as his personal property. That idea kind of sickened me. If Steph and I were going to get married, I would belong to her as much as she would belong to me. We'd be complete equals...that is, if she didn't take complete charge. The problem was, I wasn't sure if Steph wanted to get married, and I didn't want to push her into something she wasn't completely ready for. She'd had a horrible experience with Dickie, and if she needed more time with me so I could show her I wouldn't be anything like her turd-brained ex-husband, I was more than willing to give her that.

I just knew that we'd have to have some sort of discussion about this before the long weekend was up, if only to have something to tell our families. I was at least 70% sure my grandmother wouldn't attempt to curse Stephanie if we ended up not being engaged (not that she COULD curse people), and I suspected that Stephanie's family would wait-albeit grumpily-as long as she needed them to do so. Then again, if Steph DID want to get married, I wouldn't want to be the one to hold her back.

Yeah, we definitely needed to have that talk at some point...

Up until my grandmother's intervention, I'd thought that we were in a pretty good position. We were committed to each other, and that meant taking time to spend quality time with each other as well as having sex. The time that Steph's grandmother had been living at her apartment had been really hard for both of us—Steph because sleep had become a thing of the past, and me because _any_ time alone with her had become a distant memory. When I found out that the lack of sleep had pretty much triggered her flu, I began to feel really bad that I hadn't been more receptive to Steph's needs during that time. I could have given her a key to my house so she could head there during the day, when she would have had the time to rest and clear her head. Even if I wouldn't be there to enjoy that time with her.

Part of the reason I'd been so insistent that she stay with me after getting sick, even going so far as to "kidnap" Stephanie, was out of guilt that I hadn't really been able to prevent it.

Deep down, I knew it wasn't directly my fault that Steph had gotten sick. Then again, I'd have trouble NOT going into a severe depression if I found out that Steph learned she had an inoperable brain tumor or some other deadly disease that couldn't have been prevented. What I did blame myself for was not doing enough to prevent Steph from getting sick. I mean, there _are _steps you can take to prevent illness that was caused, at least in part, by exhaustion.

Like, eliminating the exhaustion factor. Steph wasn't a dainty Barbie doll, but she had limits, even if she refused to admit to them. Besides, I liked taking care of Stephanie. Steph would call it the chauvinist in me, but I liked making sure that she was safe and being there to see to all of her needs.

This meant that I still felt kind of guilty about giving her food poisoning, maybe more so than I would have felt if she'd gotten angry at me for it. Steph had known I hadn't done it on purpose, but that just made me blame myself more.

I watched Stephanie sleep now, my arms still cradling her body against mine. The expression on her face was peaceful, which was how she usually looked when she slept. Stephanie was a very sound sleeper, only snoring occasionally. Which she'd never admit to doing. Actually, when she snored, it sounded more like a small animal coughing than any human noise. Weird sounding, I knew, but that was the best way I could think of to describe it. One of these days, I'd have to smuggle a tape recorder into our bedroom and catch her in the act. She _still_ wouldn't believe me, but it would be evidence. I grinned, thinking of ways I could threaten to use this evidence against her. Tell her I'd bring it up at one of her family dinners.

Not that I would. Steph knew I'd make threats on which I had no intention of following through. I considered it to be more playful than anything else.

Steph's nose began to twitch, and she actually let out a couple of tiny sneezes in her sleep.

"Steph?" I asked, tentatively.

"Mmph," she grunted, eyes still closed. She rolled over on her side, nearly crushing my arm in the process. "No more chocolate cake."

At least, that's what I _thought _she said. Maybe it had been "no more milk shakes."

Feeling sort of devious, I decided to see what else she'd say. "Any vanilla cake?" I queried. "Birthday cake?"

There was a pause, and then, she said, "Bob, don't eat my bra."

I covered my mouth to muffle my snicker. That was definitely something that Bob would do.

"But what about the cake?" I pressed, stroking her hair.

Steph turned her head towards the pillow and told it something unintelligible. It consisted more of sounds than letters, but if I were to repeat it, it would sound something like, "Mmshdi oskkhh mmph burr kkmrdmd."

I gently removed Steph's face away from the pillow, and then she started snoring. I stroked her forehead, and she stopped and leaned in towards me. I watched her sleep for a few more minutes, but she seemed to be past talking or making weird noises. Oh well.

I wasn't feeling very tired, and I figured that Steph would be out for at least another hour, so I stretched my hand over towards the small desk and retrieved the remote. I turned on the TV, keeping the volume high enough to hear what was going on, but low enough not to run the risk of waking her. Given that it was a Saturday afternoon, there wasn't much good on. Lots of kid shows and soap operas. Some sports games with extra innings, but those were teams and sports I didn't care about. I clicked over to the movie section and decided to check out what was available as far as free movies went. Usually, the free movies were old or obscure titles, but sometimes you found something good.

I was pleased to see that "Twilight" was one of the titles offered. I'd suggest to Steph that we watch it later that night, after buying plenty of popcorn and candy. No point in watching a movie without those necessary items. I continued to browse the other free movies, but aside from horror movies that would _definitely_ wake Stephanie up and ensure that she didn't sleep for a long time (not, I reflected, that this would be entirely bad…), nothing looked appealing. I switched over to the TV shows and was catching up with the final season of Lost when Steph roused herself from her sleep.

I knew she was up because I felt her move closer towards me—not a small feat when we were already cuddling—and placed her head on my chest, face down. I grinned and began stroking her hair. She let out a few appreciative noises and then removed her arms from my back and began to stretch them. Her head flopped away from my stomach and onto the sheets. Steph rolled over on her stomach and nearly fell off the bed before I caught her.

"Man, Cupcake, even sleeping is dangerous for you," I informed Stephanie, planting a kiss on her forehead.

"Yeah," she agreed, clearly more asleep than awake.

It always took Steph a few minutes to wake up from a sound sleep, so I used the time to hold her with one arm and smooth her hair back with the other. When she was no longer in danger of falling off the bed without my assistance, I reluctantly let go.

"Was I out long?" she asked me, moving to a sitting position.

I'd made it through the first three episodes of Lost, so I estimated that she'd been sleeping for at least an hour and a half.

"Less than two hours," I confirmed. "Are you feeling…_rested_?"

Knowing what I meant, Steph grinned. "Very."

I turned off the TV so I could focus my entire attention on Stephanie, who was starting to fumble with her nightgown.

"I can help you with that," I offered.

A half an hour later, we were back to cuddling as our heart rates slowed down.

"If we keep this up, I'm going to need a lot more pizza and boardwalk fries for energy," Steph remarked, rather dryly. "Not to mention multiple naps for recovering."

I snorted back laughter. "Recovery? Great, you make it sound like it's an operation."

Steph just poked me on the arm. "You know what I mean."

I did. As much as we both loved sex, Steph's usual reaction to it was—if not downright exhaustion—then at least drowsiness for a good half an hour. She always slept like a rock if we did it more than twice before bedtime. We could never make love more than once during a weekday morning unless, by some rare chance, neither of us had to go to work before noon. This had happened once in all the time we'd been together.

A twinge of worry crept into my mind, and I wondered if she wasn't feeling some effect of the flu and the food poisoning.

"You're okay, though, right? You're not sick?"

Stephanie rolled her eyes. "Joe, I'm fine."

"Okay, but if you ever feel like you aren't, please tell me," I requested.

Stephanie let out a long sigh. "Fine, but quit babying me, okay? I'm not a kid."

That remark stung. "I know that."

My hurt must have shown, because Steph softened. "Sorry," she mumbled.

"Me too," I complied, sort of surprised. Apologizing was a big thing for her. I extended my arms to her, and she climbed into them and made herself comfortable in my lap. "I love you," I told her.

She smiled and gave me a long kiss on the lips. I guessed this was Steph's way of saying she felt the same way.

It didn't exactly bother me that Stephanie hadn't used those words _to_ me. As with physical affection, I just realized that it wasn't something she was used to. I hoped that if I was patient enough, it would come naturally, on its own.

It would sort of defeat the point if I had to _ask_ Steph to tell me she loved me.

Besides, I knew that loving someone meant more than just saying it to them. My father had told my mother that he loved her regularly, but this was usually in the middle of a fight, or after she found out that he'd contracted a disease from another woman he'd been seeing on the side. What my father usually said was some form of, "Angie, you _know_ I love you." My mother would just nod and tell him, always sort of sadly and quietly, that she loved him too.

I guessed that she must have, to have stayed with him for so long. Then again, Morellis didn't believe in divorce. Not even under the grounds of adultery. I sort of agreed with that, but I knew that I'd take the sanctity of marriage more seriously than most of my male relatives, living or deceased.

It had helped, growing up, that my dad never hit my mom in front of us kids. Maybe he hit her behind closed doors, but it was never hard enough to leave a mark. Also, his behavior with other women made me fairly certain that he never forced my mom to have sex with him.

The thing was, there were codes of behavior even in our dysfunctional family, and the families like ours that traditional Burg housewives would refer to as "bums." The men passed down these rules from generation to generation, but the rules were never stated explicitly and always taught by example. They prevented the "bums" from becoming truly heinous criminals. There was a huge difference between a jerk and someone who did stuff you could go to jail for.

These rules were as follows: Absolutely no nonconsensual sex for the males. If your wife or girlfriend wouldn't give you sex, you could find it somewhere else, as long as you were reasonably discreet. Hitting the kids was okay, as long as you didn't send them to the hospital. If you _have _to hit your wife, don't ever do it in front of the kids or other adults. On a similar note, the male kids were _not_ allowed to hit the girls, or else the not hitting them to the extent of them needing medical treatment rule didn't apply. If you got a girl pregnant, you married her. Female Morellis weren't supposed to have sex until marriage. Males were supposed to have sex as long as they were careful or, if they weren't careful, were prepared to marry the woman they impregnated. Also, if you were a male Morelli and weren't having safe sex, it better be because you had a girlfriend. After all, Morelli men could have affairs outside of marriage, but they weren't supposed to father children outside of marriage.

All of these rules were all unspoken, but every kid and adult knew them. Every one of us obeyed them.

I rejected all of them, except for the marrying your pregnant girlfriend and not hurting your wife in front of the kids. But I didn't believe in hitting your wife, period, so I guessed that I rejected that one as well.

My hormones may have led me to follow the rules about having a lot of sex with consenting females, but my morality made me see that it was pretty pointless to do this unless you planned on being with that one woman permanently. That "one woman" was Stephanie Plum.

If a female didn't know these rules before she married a Morelli, she found them out soon enough. Of course, few females who married into the Morelli family were completely ignorant about what they were getting themselves into. We had a reputation throughout the Burg.

I knew I didn't want to be the typical cheating Morelli husband when I married Stephanie. I'd hurt her enough when I'd been a teenager. If I could go back in time and do things over, I'd _never_ have visited her before joining the navy. Or, if I had found myself unable to stop my past self from visiting the Tasty Pastry on that fateful day, I probably would have stopped things before they progressed to making out.

Sure, I'd have told Steph how much I cared about her, but explained that my commitment to join the navy was about my becoming a better person.

And _not_ nullified that by taking her virginity. That action had caused us both a ton of heartache. Even now, I couldn't blame Stephanie for not being able to tell me that she loved me.

I knew that she did whenever we kissed or made love.


	17. More Beach Fun

Stephanie

I woke up from my nap to find Morelli's arms around my chest, enveloping me in his warmth. The conversation about my lack of showing physical affection had been difficult because I hadn't realized until then that I was making Morelli do everything. Fortunately, things had ended on a good note, and I would make more of an attempt to act more intimate with him in ways that went beyond sex.

I glanced up at Morelli, who was preoccupied with a sitcom on TV. He smiled when he saw that I was awake.

"Hi," I said, almost shyly.

His arms tightened around me and we exchanged a long kiss with a considerable amount of tongue. "Hey, Cupcake."

I grinned. "That's a nice way to wake up," I commented.

"I can think of some other nice things," he told me. "Would you like to hear about them?"

My grin widened. "I think I'd prefer a demonstration."

Morelli gave me another long kiss. I giggled.

"I like that," I told him.

"_That,_ Cupcake, was just the beginning."

An hour later, I was starting to think that we should just quit our jobs and live every day like this. Not with the fighting or the arguments, but with all of the benefits associated with making up. Of course, we'd probably run out of money before long. Maybe we could switch to a cheaper hotel room. That might give us an extra couple of weeks. Then again, we wouldn't be bringing any more money in, so we'd have to cut down on food. Also, Joe's team and Vinnie would probably be pretty ticked off, so we might end up changing our names and starting a new life together. Might as well move to another beach so they couldn't track us down. That would cost another several thousand.

I knew that it wouldn't work, but it was fun to think about.

I curled up against Morelli, who looked pretty relaxed from our activities. Usually, I was the one who nearly passed out with contented exhaustion after extended intimacy with Morelli, but he looked pretty content and ready for a long nap.

I, on the other hand, had the benefit of having napped beforehand. I wasn't up for running a marathon, but I certainly wasn't half asleep.

"I liked your demonstration," I told him. "I'd give it an A."

Morelli looked a little disappointed. "Not an A+?"

I shrugged. "Fine, an A+."

Morelli ran a hand along my face. "You look like you could use some convincing."

"_You_ look ready to pass out."

"Yeah," he admitted, hiding a yawn. "Give me a half an hour and then I'm all yours."

So I watched TV while Morelli took a short nap, and afterwards, there was no doubt in my mind that he was an A+. Which I told him, and he looked pretty pleased to hear it.

We were quiet for a little, enjoying each other's company, when Morelli spoke up.

"I thought you'd like to know that one of your favorite books was made into a movie." At my confused look, he explained, "The one with the shiny vampires."

I smiled at him. "Did you watch it while I was sleeping?"

"Hell no, Steph. I wanted to wait and watch it with you. Then, we could make fun of it together."

"Good point."

Movie night was always fun with Morelli, but bad movies were almost better than good ones. If the movie was truly horrible, we'd laugh half of the way through it, and make fun of it during the other half.

Of course, we didn't have the same taste in movies, so that was one area that we usually compromised. Morelli still couldn't believe I liked Ghostbusters, and he'd complain if I insisted on watching it, but he'd rather watch it with me than have me watch it alone. Personally, I thought that a lot of it had to do with the fact that we always ate a ton of junk food during our movie nights. Maybe he felt like it was one thing for me to eat a lot of chocolate, but he needed an occasion to use as an excuse for stuffing his face with it. The fact was, Morelli loved dessert as much as I did.

Morelli was more into the scary movies, but I was pretty sure that this was because it almost guaranteed that I'd spend the night (or he'd spend the night at my apartment) and that meant that we'd have sex. Also, I tend to be more physically intimate with Morelli during the movie if I'm scared out of my mind. There's a lot of hand holding and me sitting on his lap with my eyes closed and my head pressed against his chest during the violent murder scenes.

During one of our first dates, we'd watched the first Saw movie together. It wasn't _too_ bad, but then he wanted to watch the second one, and I had nightmares for a few days after seeing the first five minutes. Without being overly gruesome, the first five minutes involved a guy needing to rip off a part of his face in order to free himself from a trap that would kill him. Morelli stayed over at my apartment for those days, until I was able to fall asleep without worrying about some guy breaking into my apartment and hacking off various body parts.

We took a break from scary movies after that.

I knew that "Twilight" would probably be one of those horrible movies we'd enjoy making fun of because it was bound to be more cringe inducing than scary.

"Don't forget, we'll need snacks," I said.

"Naturally." He spoke like it would be unthinkable not to stuff ourselves with junk food during a movie night. Which, really, was probably pretty close to the truth, at least with me. I never understood people who could go to the movie theaters and not, at the very least, get popcorn. Or smuggle snacks in. It just went against the whole movie experience if you didn't snack while you were there.

Morelli glanced at the clock. "It's after 5. Want to have dinner and pick some stuff up on the way back?"

If it had just been me, I would have raided the mini bar for the movie treats, but I knew that the stuff there cost at least ten dollars apiece. If we were going out to eat, we might as well stop at the supermarket and find snacks that weren't from the previous century.

"Sure. Just give me a half an hour to shower and get ready."

"Didn't you shower earlier?"

I held out a handful of my hair, which was incredibly frizzy due to our activities. "I don't want to run into anyone like this."

He kissed me on the forehead. "I think you already look sexy, Cupcake, but you do whatever makes you comfortable."

More warm and fuzzy feelings flooded through me. I grinned like an idiot, and headed into the bathroom.

I wore a jean skirt I'd thrown in as an afterthought and a t-shirt under a long sleeved flannel shirt to dinner. We wouldn't be going anywhere fancy, so I didn't want to spend the extra time getting dressed up. I did add a few swipes of mascara and some lip gloss.

A half an hour later, we were back on the boardwalk, this time in search of a restaurant. I gave the seagulls a glare, even though I knew that the ones who had stolen my French fries were probably not among them. Morelli ran a hand through my hair in a conciliatory gesture.

"You probably fed a whole family earlier, Steph," he offered. "Think of all of those baby seagulls who will live another day because of you."

I knew he was teasing, because if they hadn't grabbed my food, they'd have grabbed someone else's food. You never saw a starving seagull on the Jersey shore.

Still, the idea of a family of baby birds being kept alive by my massive carton of fries had some appeal. Maybe someone would write a picture book about that scenario. Not me—if my writing skills were barely average, my ability to draw made me seem like Shakespeare in comparison—but other people had to have thought of this idea.

I leaned in closer towards Morelli, and he responded by wrapping both of his arms around my shoulders. The night, I realized as soon as we'd headed outside, was a lot cooler than I'd expected, and while I'd worn two layers, I hadn't bothered with a hoodie or a sweater. This probably wouldn't matter once we got inside, but it was enough to make me not want to stand outside any longer than necessary.

Until now. Morelli, despite not being particularly heavily dressed, had plenty of body heat.

We slowed our pace. When a group of people cut in front of us, causing us to stop, Morelli took this opportunity to plant a kiss just below my ear. No tongue—he'd probably save that for later—but not the exactly friendly peck on the forehead he'd give in front of our families.

"Mmm," I murmured, placing my head against his shoulder.

I could feel Morelli grinning. "Love you too."

I snuggled against him and we walked along in companionable silence. Minutes later, I was feeling downright toasty with Morelli's arms wrapped tightly around my chest and, probably, trying to look inside my shirt. I smiled to myself when I realized that he wouldn't see much. The shirt practically reached up to my neck.

"Enjoying the view?" I asked innocently.

"Yeah, but wait until the stars come out later," he retorted.

We'd reached a family style diner by now, and my stomach was starting to growl.

"How about here?" I asked, turning my head at him.

Morelli glanced inside. Maybe twenty people sat at tables and at the bar. Not exactly a crowd, even when it was this time of the year, but not empty enough to make you wonder about food poisoning.

"Looks good to me."

The host was a slender female who looked like she was in her early twenty's. She gave Morelli an admiring look and me a slightly envious one before taking us to an empty table.

"I'll make sure a waiter serves you shortly," she promised. "We're doing some training today, getting ready for the summer crowd, but they're mostly new tonight."

Morelli gave me a questioning look, as though asking if I'd be okay if we had to wait an extra twenty to thirty minutes. I gave him a brief nod and a smile, and he turned back to her. "That's no problem."

We sat down across from each other, and opened the menus. Morelli put a hand over mine as I read over the items, trying to figure out what I wanted to order. Should I be good and order a salad, to balance out those fries and the upcoming night of junk food? Or should I forget about that since we were on vacation and I still had a few pounds to gain back?

Of course, everyone knew that whatever weight you gained while on vacation would disappear at least a week after you came back. Or maybe it was the other way around.

Either way, I decided against the salad option and got some fruit. Tasty and full of sugar, so it was a win win.

For dinner, I went with a grilled chicken sandwich, some soup, and a baked potato, which I ended up sharing with Morelli. Morelli ordered at least twice as much food, and devoured all of it. It was a testament to life's unfairness that Morelli could eat like he did and look the way he looked. Granted, I wasn't exactly fat, but I couldn't inhale a table of food _and_ dessert and still be able to button the top button of my jeans. Once, I had commented about this to Morelli, and he'd just rolled his eyes and said something like, "Yeah, but aren't those jeans a size negative two that you wore in high school?"

Which was partly true (the high school part, not the negative two part), so I hadn't complained any further on that occasion. It was true that I rarely _had_ to buy new clothes because I was virtually the same size I'd been in high school. On the other hand, sometimes fitting into those clothes was difficult, and not because I'd grown overly busty in the last fifteen years.

Morelli and I didn't do a whole lot of talking at first, just devouring the food as though it had been ten years since we'd eaten instead of a few hours. I'd heard that it had something to do with the air at the shore. Maybe it was the salt. Everyone was hungrier and ate more.

Since Morelli had claimed some of my baked potato, I routinely stole bites of his steak when he was busy with another part of his meal. I admit, I mostly did this to tease him. Steak was probably his favorite food on the planet, his dinner equivalent of my mom's pineapple upside down cake.

At first, Morelli just rolled his eyes and acted like he didn't notice, but by the fifth bite, he gave me a mock serious glare. "Having fun, Cupcake?"

I gave him what I imagined to be an innocent, yet seductive, smile. "Mmm."

"You're going to have to pay for that," he told me, returning the smile with one of his own.

I rolled my eyes at him. "You're already getting sex later."

"True," Morelli agreed. "I'll have to think of something else."

"Hey, you stole my baked potato!"

"Steph, a baked potato doesn't come anywhere near steak."

I took a bite of the potato. "You're right. It's better."

He gave me a look like I'd said the earth was inhabited by aliens. "That's blasphemy."

"Hey, chips come from potatoes, and French fries come from potatoes, but all steak gives you is steak."

"Exactly," I retorted. "Steak needs other stuff around it because it's so sad on its own. It's just a big blob of meat." With that, I covered the potato protectively and pulled it close to the edge of the table.

Morelli made a face at me. "I don't understand what you said, but I guess that means you won the argument."

"Good guess."

We'd planned on skipping dessert since we'd be stuffing ourselves with candy later, but when the waiter showed us the dessert tray, we ended up ordering a few things to take back with us. Not wanting to miss out on anything, Morelli and I ended up leaving with a fruit tart _covered_ with whipped cream, a piece of apple pie, a piece of raspberry pie oozing with chocolate sauce, a big piece of blueberry cake, and an apple tart. Hey, it all contained fruit, so it wasn't _completely_ unhealthy.

I'd planned on splitting the bill with Morelli, but he insisted on paying it, which was pretty much what he'd done with everything on the trip. It made me feel a little guilty. True, we were almost practically engaged, but I _did_ have money with me that I'd earned from chasing skips.

"Let me get the tip, at least," I insisted, digging around in my purse for a twenty.

Morelli looked like he wanted to say no, but the look on my face told him to forget it. He just gave me a kiss on the forehead, and let me leave the twenty on the table. Technically, the bill had come to under 100 dollars so the tip was more than enough, but I didn't have anything less than a twenty and I didn't want to act like a jerk and have the waiter give me a few dollars back in change.

By the time we left the restaurant, it was really dark, so some of the street lights had been turned on. It was too cold for me to be enjoying the boardwalk scene, but there were some people who were dressed more warmly and even a couple of kids on some of the rides.

"I didn't realize they opened them this early," I commented, enjoying the feeling of Morelli's arms wrapped tightly around me.

"Probably a weekend thing. In two months, this place will be packed on a Monday night."

I hoped we'd get to go back before the end of the summer, even if it was just for a weekend. Morelli seemed to sense how I was feeling, because he drew his arms around me even more tightly.

"Maybe July 4th. It falls on a Thursday this year, and I could probably swing Friday and a half day on Wednesday if I promised to work the following weekend."

I turned to face him. "I'd like that," I said, a little quietly.

Of course, we'd be lucky to get a nice motel room that time of year, but I wasn't picky about that kind of thing. It wasn't like I was nuts about thread count (hell, we could bring our own sheets, if it came down to that) or if we were next door to a casino.

"Sure thing, Cupcake. I love you."

I snugged into Morelli's sweatshirt, enjoying the feeling of the cotton mixed with his body heat. Why was it that he was always so warm? Not that I was complaining. Except when I was alone in my apartment in the winter and the heat wasn't working well and it took at least five minutes to get warm under as many blankets. Also, Morelli always smelled good—kind of like a mixture of chocolate and cinnamon and what I imagined autumn smelled like—and that fragrance was better than any hair shampoo I'd ever used.

Not that this would be a problem for much longer. The thought should have cheered me up, but it sent a pang of worry down my spine. Maybe I'd rather be a little cold without Morelli—sometimes—than practically suffocating with him always there.

Except he _didn't_ suffocate me. Not really. He was pretty easy to live with, and he wasn't like one of those Burg husbands who expected their wives to have a hot, home cooked meal (made from scratch, no less) on the table the second he came home from work. Morelli knew that my cooking skills were pretty marginal. If all of the takeout places had shut down temporarily and we were out of peanut butter, I'd use one of those preheated meals. And he wouldn't act like he was chewing on cardboard.

Did _Morelli_ want to get married? He'd been the one who had proposed, but that was because his mother and grandmother railroaded him into it. Probably, he would have been happy enough as things were.

Except, he really seemed to like having me at his house on a semi long term basis. He'd liked taking care of me when I'd been sick. That seemed to go further than just wanting to be a good boyfriend. Right?

We'd definitely have to have the conversation before the end of the trip. It would probably be awkward. It might even ruin the rest of the trip, so I sort of hoped it was something we could put off until after we got back to Morelli's house. Maybe even the weekend afterwards.

Of course, delaying the conversation would also create its own level of awkwardness, so maybe I should just bite the bullet and get it over with.

Just not tonight.

We walked back to the apartment in mostly companionable silence, and then took Morelli's car to the market, since that was a lot further away than the groups of stores at the boardwalk. We stocked up on junk food, but added a few regular items to the cart to balance it out. Also, in case I wanted a peanut butter sandwich and didn't feel like ordering room service for it.

The store wasn't very crowded, so we ended up not spending much time waiting in line. We divided the groceries among us and then threw them in the back of Morelli's truck. Fifteen minutes later, we were stretched out in bed with plenty of goodies to enjoy a horrible vampire movie.

I noticed that the second one was also available for free, but I didn't think that either of us could handle that kind of exposure to vampires at one time. Still, maybe we could watch it on Sunday or Monday. It was a little hard to believe that we'd only spent a day at the shore, with three more left.

As bad as the first book had been, the movie was even worse. Fortunately, that just made the experience of commenting about it more enjoyable.

My mouth literally fell open when Edward first appeared on the screen. Not the good kind, either. "_That_ is Edward? The hottest guy in the universe?"

"Kind of looks like he has food poisoning, doesn't he?"

"Blood poisoning, more likely," I mused.

I also couldn't figure out why anyone liked Bella. She was flat out anti-social to anyone she encountered. Almost like Joe's Grandma Bella. Except, without the Italian hand gestures and the Eye.

As horrible as it sounded, when Bella got bitten by the other vampire, Morelli and I started laughing. It was just so over the top.

By the time the credits rolled, I felt like I had lost half of my brain. "That was definitely the worst movie I've ever seen."

Morelli seemed to feel the same way. "I thought we'd at least get to see vampire sex."

"That's not until the final book," I reminded him. I tried to remember what happens in the other ones. "I think Edward abandons Bella in the next one because he almost kills her when she slices her finger."

"No, that was his brother," Morelli corrected. "The one who thought it was okay to eat humans."

"You'd think Edward would want to keep Bella even closer to him after that," I commented. "If his own brother wanted to kill her."

Morelli shrugged and pulled me towards him. "Let's try for something more fun now," he told me, playing with the buttons on my flannel shirt.


	18. Next Morning

The plan for Sunday was to wake up early and watch the sun rise. Then, we would order room service and take a walk on the beach. This had sounded like a good idea on Saturday night, especially since we went to bed at the insanely early hour of 9:00, in preparation for getting up super early.

Of course, when Morelli woke me up a little after 6 in the morning, it felt like torture to leave the warm bed.

"Go away," I grumbled, pulling the covers over my head.

"Cupcake, it will be fun," he coaxed as he attempted to pry the covers from over my head.

I rolled over on my side, taking the covers with me. "No way," I murmured, although I suspected that the blankets blocked out most of my voice. "It's too early."

Morelli pulled a piece of blanket away from my face, exposing my nose to the cold air. "Just for a few minutes."

"Mmph." I pulled the blankets back over my head.

I could imagine Morelli grinning as he continued to pry the blankets from my face—which was probably a good thing because I was starting to run out of air. Of course, once my head was visible, he began to work at disentangling me from the rest of the covers. I could have fought him off, had I been more awake, but the ungodly hour did to me what sunlight must do to vampires.

"This is cruel and unusual punishment," I complained.

Once Morelli had successfully removed all of the blankets and the sheets, a wave of coolness swept over me. I wasn't freezing, exactly, but I definitely missed the warm blankets. I sent what I hoped was a withering look in Morelli's direction, and he gave me a concerned glance.

"We can do this tomorrow, if you're not feeling up to it," he offered, scooping me into his arms.

"You say this after dragging me out of my warm bed."

Morelli located one of the thicker blankets and wrapped it around me. "How's that?"

"Better." I rested my head against his shoulders. "Let's get this over with."

Morelli carried me outside onto our balcony, and I felt a deeper appreciation for the blanket once the cold air assaulted me.

"It's freezing!" I whined.

I noticed that Morelli didn't disagree with that statement. He'd sat himself down in one of the chairs, me in his lap. I turned to face him, and I could tell that he looked freezing. Feeling a little bad for Morelli, I removed a section of blanket from around my shoulders and handed it to him. He got up from the chair, wrapped the blanket around us, and then sat back down again. I rested the back of my head against Morelli's chest, covered by his flannel pajamas.

If we were going to watch the sun rise, I might as well see the sun.

He wrapped his arms around my stomach, and I savored the feeling of the hug. It was still fairly dark outside, and I wanted to make a quip about the sun taking its time to get its butt in the sky, but the moment was too nice to disturb.

Eventually, the sky began to change from night to day. I sat still, watching the explosion of colors and wondering why I didn't wake up earlier to experience this—if not every day, then at least once a week. Or even once a month.

I turned to Morelli. "You must see this all the time."

He smiled and held me close to him. "Not _all_ the time. I like waking up early, but that's too much even for me. But a lot of the time."

I could sort of understand why. But even now, it wasn't quite day outside, and being this comfortable was making me miss the bed. I glanced in the direction of our bedroom, hoping Morelli would take the hint.

He did. "All right, Cupcake. I'll let you get your beauty rest. Unless…" he trailed off, sounding hopeful.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Give me a few hours to become human."

He stood up, pulling me with him. "It is still kind of early. Maybe I'll take a nap, too."

A few minutes later, we were both in the king sized bed, both wrapped in the blankets, and me wrapped up in Morelli's arms. I could feel his breath on my shoulders, and I reflected that it was a good thing that he didn't have morning breath. I was almost positive I couldn't say the same about myself, but, being a good boyfriend/kind of fiancé, Morelli never commented about it.

Feeling very content and sleepy, I closed my eyes and waited for sleep to come. When I opened my eyes the next time, it was a few hours later and the sun was high in the sky. Morelli was already awake, and I wondered how long he'd been waiting for me to get up so I could make good on my promise.

I smiled at him and he greeted me with a long kiss.

"Good morning, sunshine," he said, after we came back up for air.

"Morning, Joe."

A half an hour later, I was both famished and extremely satisfied. Looking at Joe, I could tell that he felt the same way. He grabbed the menu from the nightstand and began to read through the options out loud.

"They all sound good. What about the buffet option? That's basically one of everything, but we don't have to pay as much as if we actually ordered everything from the menu."

I nodded. "Actually, it says at the bottom that the prices are reduced by a third whenever it's off season."

Morelli glanced at the fine print. "I thought our bills were lower than they should have been yesterday. I'd planned to ask about that when we checked out."

"There are definitely peaks to being here when almost no one else is," I commented.

Morelli planted a kiss on my forehead. "You're the only one I'd want to be here with, Cupcake."

It should have sounded cheesy, but it mostly just felt sweet. I could feel my insides go all mushy.

"So, the buffet?" I asked.

"Yeah, but I'm going to ask for extra blueberry muffins and pancakes. And sausage," Morelli added. "Can you think of anything else?"

I couldn't, so I shook my head, and Morelli reached for the phone. With his free hand, he began to rub my neck in small circles, just the way I liked. I shut my eyes, savoring the feeling.

"We probably have enough time for round two," he said, after hanging up, adding the second hand to my neck.

We'd just finished getting dressed—in our jammies—when the bell rang. Morelli signed for the food and wheeled the tray over to the bed. I wondered if the request for the extra food had been necessary—what they gave us could have fed a family for a week.

"Maybe we could eat on the balcony, if it's not too cold outside," Morelli suggested, handing me my robe.

This sounded like a good idea, so Morelli wheeled the food out to the porch while I grabbed a blanket in case the temperature was still below 50. Sitting close together in a semi comfortable plastic couch with cushions, we dug into the food.

I started in on the pancakes—soft and buttery, and loaded with syrup—while Morelli gobbled up the bacon and the sausage without adding anything to them. We each ate a huge blueberry muffin and then split the pastries evenly. Partly to be fair, and partly to see just what was inside them, since my favorites were strawberry, blueberry, and raspberry while Morelli claimed to be more of a cherry and lemon fan. We both loved chocolate.

Once we'd divvied up the unhealthy snacks, we took turns feeding pieces to each other. Of course, a lot of food ended up on our faces, which meant the other person had to clean off the extra pieces, which involved a lot of tongue. By the end of the meal, I was convinced that we had burned off at least half of the calories we'd consumed.

"Let's hit the shower and then the beach," Joe suggested, holding me close to him.

"Promise me you won't throw me in the ocean this time."

"I didn't throw you into the ocean!" Morelli protested.

I turned to face him. "You _almost_ did."

"I was just teasing you."

"Uh huh." I folded my arms and pretended to pout.

Morelli kissed me on top of the forehead. "I promise not to throw you in the ocean."

"Thank you."

"I wouldn't want the sharks to get you."

I gave him a light punch on the arm. "They'd prefer you over me. More meat."

"Muscles, you mean."

"That, too."

A few minutes later, we made our way to the bathroom to shower. This also included a long scalp massage (for me) and a back rub (for Morelli), so when we emerged, we were both feeling very relaxed and in good moods. I got dressed in a knee length jean skirt and a flannel shirt, with a sweatshirt draped around my waist in case the weather should change. Unlikely—the forecast called for a day in the high 70's—but just because some guy on TV said this didn't mean the weather couldn't change its mind and give us a rainstorm or, worse, a blizzard.

The boardwalk was slightly less crowded. Probably more people going to church. I felt that momentary pang of guilt when I realized it had been at least six months since I'd been to Mass, but I banished it with a half-hearted apology to God and the promise to try again next week. It was too nice of a day to feel guilty about not going to church.

Once that was finished, I set out to enjoy the rest of the day. Yesterday had been great, and I expected that today would be even better. The start of the day had certainly been pleasant. Morelli and I held hands as we walked down the boardwalk and towards the beach. I took off my flip flops and enjoyed the feel of the warm sand on my feet. We were quiet for awhile, just holding hands, enjoying each other's company. Morelli, I'd learned, was someone who was fun to banter with, but it was also nice to just be with him. We didn't need to talk all the time to know what was going on in the other person's head.

The water didn't feel as cold as it had the day before, and the sun made the day feel especially warm. Had I brought a bathing suit, I probably wouldn't have minded taking a quick swim, as long as I had plenty of time to adjust to the cold water. Well, maybe later in the summer.

After the lifeguards went on duty.

I wondered how much it would be to stay in this hotel for a few nights during the summer. Probably way outside of my budget—and probably Morelli's, too. We didn't really discuss money.

Well, actually, we didn't really discuss _his_ money. Morelli knew that I made enough to live on, but I pretty much lived paycheck to paycheck. Sometimes, when I mailed my rent checks to my landlord, they were a few hundred dollars short. I always made up the balance within the next few months, and my apartment wasn't exactly in high demand, so I hadn't received any eviction notices since beginning my new career as a bounty hunter. I knew that part of this was because I wasn't careful enough with the money I _did_ earn. Unless you were Ranger, you couldn't get rich on the kinds of bail bonds that arrived at Vinnie's office.

Still, I knew that I had a tendency to spend a lot of my "food money" on junk food or pizza takeout, instead of buying large amounts of vegetables that were on sale. Also, I never used coupons. You would think that living in the same building as a bunch of senior citizens would mean that some of their habits would rub off on me, like how, when a bunch of women live together, they're all supposed to get the periods at the same time. Which reminded me, I should probably expect my next monthly visit any time between the end of the trip and the next week. At least, that's what I told myself. My period was actually less reliable on the pill than when I didn't use the pill.

Anyway, I knew that Morelli earned enough to live on as a cop, and in the past, he'd made comments to his family about how many kids we'd be able to afford. Which meant that his financial situation wasn't nearly as tentative as mine. I imagined that his job also included a retirement plan and full health insurance. He'd paid my hospital bill when I'd gotten food poisoning, but that was because most health plans covered families, but not girlfriends.

If we went out to eat or (more often) ordered takeout together, Morelli paid. If I picked up food and Morelli stopped by, I ended up with the bill. Also, we pretty much shared after leftovers from dinners with my parents. Mostly, Morelli handled the food/entertainment money. That was as much of a burg tradition than my lack of money. Things were just old fashioned that way. Also, at this stage of a relationship, women usually ended up cooking meals for the guy they would end up marrying. I didn't cook, and Morelli knew this. If we ever got married, we'd survive on takeout, leftovers from my parents, and his cooking (which was pretty good). I'd keep my job as a bounty hunter, but without my apartment's rent, I'd have a nice steady supply of cash.

The thought should have made me happy, but the idea of not having an apartment to retreat to made me nervous. The last few weeks excluded, Morelli and I hadn't done much living together. Probably, we should do some of that before getting married.

Equally probable was the fact that his parents would freak out and mine would just act resigned and hope that the wedding ended up happening. And, inwardly, be grateful that at least Valerie had a stable husband and family on the other side of the country.

The good daughter.

These sort of thoughts could make me depressed, and that was the last thing I wanted on this day, so I made myself think of something else. Joe, perhaps sensing my mood, looked in my direction and put an arm around my shoulder.

"Everything okay, Cupcake?"

"Oh, just thinking," I smiled.

"Anything you want to talk about?"

I didn't want to ruin—or at least disrupt—the trip by drawing attention to the wedding conversation we'd have to have before seeing our families. I'd hoped that we could put it off indefinitely, but I knew my parents well enough to recognize that they'd bug me and Morelli about our impending wedding as soon as they saw us again. Then again, _not_ talking would probably bug me until the end of the vacation.

Morelli must have sensed my unease, because he put am arm around my shoulder.

"I love you, Steph. If there's anything on your mind that's bothering you, I'd like to know." Then he laughed self consciously. "I mean, not that you're required to tell me everything that you're thinking about. Just…" He trailed off for minute, then added, "I'm here to listen, if you want to."

I'd known what he meant, but the fact that Joe took the time to clarify gave me a warm feeling.

"I'm kind of freaked out about the whole wedding thing. You know, since our parents think we're getting married."

I frowned. That had made it seem like we weren't. Neither of which I was totally sure about, except that we _had_ both referred to it on occasion like something that was going to happen.

Morelli squeezed my shoulder. "Is it the wedding planning that's the problem, or the idea of marriage?"

I frowned. "I like weddings. I especially enjoy the cake aspect." This got a chuckle, which was what I'd been going for. "I like the idea of marriage, too. Two people deciding to live together and only…be intimate with each other, and possibly having kids. Living that way for the rest of their lives, which could end up being fifty or sixty years."

"It's a good idea, when it works out," Morelli agreed. "Too often, it doesn't."

I nodded. "Right. Then, it either ends in divorce..."

Or it doesn't. Which we left unsaid, but both of us knew how the sentence finished. Morelli had said, on several occasions, that his family didn't do divorce. If you married a Morelli, you married for life. Fortunately, for the women, the men usually died young. I only knew of one person in Joe's family who'd made it past fifty.

I was _fairly_ certain that the deaths hadn't been directly caused by their wives.

Still, as much as I liked being with Morelli, and as much as he hadn't turned out like any other male in his family, the idea of being with one person for the rest of my life felt a little suffocating.

Sometimes. Other times, it felt a lot better than an on again, off again relationship. Besides, at some point, we'd become too senile to remember why we'd last argued.

"If we were really unhappy after a few years, and we did everything to make it work but it didn't, I wouldn't deny you a divorce, Cupcake," Morelli promised. "I know that doesn't exactly sound romantic, but, I'd never punish you by making you stay with someone you hated."

Meaning him. Oddly enough, I couldn't imagine ever hating Morelli. Well, sure, I'd had moments of justified rage in the past, but I couldn't imagine Morelli ever being stupid enough to write poetry about our sexual relationship on public buildings. Or private ones. Even when we'd played Choo Choo (which, basically, had consisted of him getting a good look at my Barbie underwear), I'd felt more annoyed that I hadn't gotten a chance to be the tunnel than angry that he'd been the train.

"Anyway, we don't have to get married as soon as we get back."

I chewed on the inside of my cheek as I processed this. "Don't some people say that they're engaged to be engaged? Like, they both know there will be a wedding at some point, but neither of them wants to hurry up and set a date, so there's an understanding that there won't be a proposal right away."

Or something like that.

"We could do that," Morelli replied, rather slowly.

"If we did that," I said, and at this point I was thinking out loud, "we could just tell our families we haven't set a date, and want to take plenty of time to plan everything."

"Your mom might not buy into that," Morelli cautioned me. "She'd start asking about what places we wanted to look at for the food and stuff. At the very least, she'd want us to start the pre Cana classes."

Dickie and I had pretty much ignored that step after we got engaged. He said that he'd had enough with Catholic education having grown up with it, and I'd agreed. To this day, I wasn't sure how we were able to get married by a priest without having attended the classes, but maybe my mom had been able to get a dispensation from the priest. Or, maybe they hadn't enforced it several years ago. Like most things involving Dickie, that was something I hadn't paid much attention to at the time, and now wanted to forget.

"I didn't go through them the first time," I admitted. "Maybe we can get out of them again."

Morelli did an eyebrow raise. "Most of my family managed to get out of them, but I kind of wonder if they'd have been happier if they'd done them. I've only heard people talk about them, but it sounds more like figuring out ways to avoid major fights than spending long hours analyzing the Catechism's view on marriage and what you can and cannot do in the bedroom."

"Oops," I laughed, thinking we'd probably broken all of those prohibitions since the trip had started. Morelli gave me a sideways grin.

By now, we'd made it back to the boardwalk, so we took a seat on one of those boardwalk bench chairs that some person had donated in memory of a dead family member.

"I think we _should_ take them when we decide we're ready to set a date," Morelli clarified. "It can't be that painful, if people still get married afterwards."

"But we're not going to set a date right away," I confirmed.

"Not until you want to, Cupcake." Morelli put an arm around my shoulder.

Then there was the question of the ring. Morelli hadn't had one when his grandmother made him propose. My family didn't have an heirloom ring, so he'd have to buy one at some point. Even if there was an heirloom ring in his family, probably one of the other Morelli daughters in law (or even daughters) got it.

That suited me just fine. I didn't want the pressure of a ring that had been around since the beginning of the papacy. There would be enough of that from the Morellis' once Joe and I finally tied the knot.

Which wouldn't be for a long time.

"We should probably wait with the rings, then," I commented. "Once my mom sees one, no amount of arguing will step her from setting a date and planning everything."

Which was what she'd done with me and Dickie, and while the wedding had turned out nicely, I didn't want the same thing with Morelli. The idea of going through a duplicate wedding as I had with the cow turd made me want to suggest eloping.

Actually, there were advantages to that.

Of course, a major disadvantage would be no wedding cake.

Right, no eloping, then.

"Just let me know when you're ready," Morelli replied. "I'm not exactly in a hurry to get married, but I think we should do it within the next five years or so."

"I _think_ I'd be ready by then."

Morelli took me in his arms and kissed me on the lips. With tongue. Fortunately, the boardwalk was empty, so it wasn't exactly a PDA.

We walked along the edge of the ocean for awhile, and then head back to the boardwalk. I saw that there were some more traffic now, including some kids enjoying the rides on the small amusement park.

Morelli must have been following my gaze, because he spoke up.

"You want to try some of those?"

I kind of did, but most of the people there were under the age of ten.

"Aren't we kind of old for that?"

Morelli shrugged. "Who cares? I'm game if you are."

I scrutinized the assortment of rides. Most of them would have been fun twenty years ago—or even ten—but a lot of them now made me uneasy. Like the giant thing where they put you in a seat and shot you up five hundred thousand feet in the air at a thousand miles a minute. Or the carousel that a lot of kids had probably thrown up on.

There _was_ a Ferris wheel, and a giant set of swings that went around in a circle. I could handle both of those.

No roller coasters, though. I'd never much liked them as a kid, so I wasn't likely to enjoy them as an adult. Also, the giant log that headed straight for the water (which was probably full of ebola or some other weird disease) made me queasy.

"How about the Ferris wheel?" I asked.

Morelli smiled. "Sure, Cupcake. That's a nice, safe ride to start with."

I made a face. "You want to do the roller coasters."

"Kind of."

"Those things always creep me out. And what about all of those people who died on them?"

"Steph, the odds of that happening are like a hundred million to one. You'd have better odds winning the lottery."

"Are you sure about that?"

"90% sure."

"We should buy lottery tickets before going on that thing," I mused. "Of course, then we'd end up dead and multimillionaires."

Morelli did an eye roll. "I'll hold you the whole time, and you can close your eyes during the scary parts."

"It's _all_ scary!" I protested, but I was laughing.

"We'll build up to it. Start with the carousel—"

"—Where a hundred kids threw up," I interrupted.

"—And end with the roller coaster that claimed exactly one person in a hundred million," he finished.

I eyed the carousel suspiciously. "Maybe we should _start_ with the roller coaster. If we die, we won't have to ride the carousel that all the kids threw up on."

"See? It's not looking so scary, already."


End file.
